Biomass burning emission inventory from burnt area data given by the SPOT-VEGETATION system in the frame of TRACE-P and ACE-Asia campaigns

One of the main uncertainties in the estimation of the climatic impact of aerosols is linked to our knowledge of gas and aerosol emissions. This is particularly crucial over Asia, where a strong regional fingerprint is observed, with different emission types, depending on the various vegetation and climate conditions (biomass burning emissions) and on the very fast changes of the population and industrialization (biofuel and fossil fuel emissions). The main contribution of this work is to derive a biomass burning inventory of 1° × 1° over Asia (the Asian biomass burning inventory (ABBI)) for gases and particles for the Aerosol Characterization Experiment-Asia (ACE-Asia) and Transport and Chemical Evolution Over the Pacific (TRACE-P) campaign period (March to May 2001) in 2001. In this paper we apply new estimates of burnt biomass area to estimate emissions. The method is based on burnt areas (GBA2000 project; Tansey et al. (2002) and Grégoire et al. (2003)) obtained from 1 km resolution SPOT-VEGETATION satellite data. Regional-scale maps of burnt areas are produced, and then spatial and temporal emission distribution are obtained from biomass density and emission factors. Strength and weaknesses associated with the use of satellite products are discussed, including the problem of subpixel classification and the lack of validation data for the accuracy assessment of the products for the studied area. Estimated emissions are compared with ACE-Asia and TRACE-P Modeling and Emission Support System (ACESS) climatological estimates. In addition, interannual variability is estimated by preparing inventories for the years 2000 and 2001.