i Detection of Smoke and Dust Aerosols Using Multi-sensor Satellite ...

Figure 3.12: Smoke images of 2007 California Fire on October 22 captured by Terra
MODIS (upper row) and on October 23 captured by Aqua MODIS (bottom row). The left
column is the MODIS true color images and the right column is the smoke images.
3.5 Chapter Summary
Large scale smoke plume from wildfires is a frequently occurred phenomenon in the
nature, releasing large amount of harmful gases and matters into the air. Detecting smoke
plume timely using satellite remote sensing measurements is explored. An algorithm
based on multi-spectral technique is developed combining measurements of both MODIS
RSBs and TEBs, aiming to detect smoke plumes over both land and ocean.
In the algorithm, the process is divided into two branches, smoke over land and
smoke over ocean. The tests and thresholds of each branch are decided based on the
spectral and statistical analyses of training data. In the algorithm, several blue bands are
used jointly or separately since they are sensitive to smoke. On the other hand, cloud
module is introduced to mask cloud to observe smoke located close to cloud or mixed
with cloud.
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