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| A World of Fires |
A World of Fires
Hello and welcome to NASA Science Live.
I'm your host, Yogesh Bhamare.
Scientists are unravelling the science of the fires. the key factor.
how can we make use of NASA data?
NASA is working to help first responders. we had no visual of which fires were burning where track smoke that harms human health.
We have to learn from this and understands the impacts.
we want to study the earth. we need to answer one of science's biggest questions.
Today we'll be talking about fires.
Did you know that at any given time there are multiple fires burning across the globe ?
We'll discuss the real science of fire We'll look at how NASA monitors and tracks fires, how the data is used in prediction, response and recovery.
Have the opportunity to speak to a NASA astronaut about how studying fire in space could help us on let's begin.
Our first stop is to one of our NASA absent we learned about the real science of fire.
Josh, take it away today I'm going to talk to you about the fire. It requires heat, oxygen and fuel to produce a flame.
This flame, not being an element, is those combustion byproducts or gasses that are so hot that they are glowing visibly to your eyes.
Wax is burning and producing a blue colour. If you look at the base of the flame, there is blue at the bottom.
At that flame progresses upward, it p up small particles emitted by the candlewick.
The hotter they get, the colour will change above that, the flame seems to disappear.
The particles are no longer emitting light that is visible to our eyes. Just because it's not vis to our eyes doesn't mean it's still not hot.
To demonstrate the fact this flame is there, even though you can no longer see it, I will take this piece of paper and I will hold it above the candle.
The paper likes to burn at 450° because the paper is not Touching the flame, visible part of the flame, but burning now, you can see that the flame is quite hot at this point.
Smoke, by the way, looks like a gas. Smoke is not a gas smoke is tiny particles of soot anar that are being emitted into the air.
They are so small, they float up into the air. Everyone is familiar with campfires.
You understand when you try to light a wet piece of wood, it's difficult to get the camping.
Their reason for this. A lot of the heat is absorbed by the water rather than by the wood which would elevate the temperature of the wood to its ignition temperature and begin burning.
I can demonstrate this by taking the source. Er, and providing a heat I readily reached the 450° temperature required for this ignition to happen and the paper burns readily.
Not a surprise.
I will take a similar piece of paper, dip it in water. Notice now that most of this energy is being absorbed the water and not by the paper.
The temperature of the paper is still relatively cool. Understanding these fundamentals help detect fire.
If it's wet, rainy or humid, it decreases the chance of burning. Understanding these fundamentals helps fire experts to fight wildfire.
How do we the science of fire to what happens here on earth?
Nasa not only investigates the stars, but we also focus on our home planet, earth.
Fire science is one of those key subject areas.
We could probably break down what we provide in terms of satellite data information, in terms of pre-fire, active fire, post-fire and also feedbacks between fire and our earth's system.
One example of those is how black carbon could land on snow and ice forcing it to melt more quickly.
Did you know, Doug, most people think of NASA as just a space agency.
However, as a's earth science is just as important as our space science.
How can NASA's unique Perspective and research inform the general public about fires?
We have more than 20 instruments in orbit including the international space station.
Each one takes measurements to help us understand the planet as a whole.
As a scientist here, one of my jobs is to take different parts of the puzzle and put them together.
Looking carefully at areas are burning, where the smoke will go tomorrow and how the smoke will last for weeks and decades can change our planet.
How big are the fires we can see from space?
That's an interesting question. Some people will say a meter by a meter, we can see smokestacks. That's a hotspot in space.
Other people will define it as an envelope of possibilities, depending on how hot and wide a fire is and if we are overhead.
We can see a smokestack or small agriculture fires. In a wildfire, we see a line of burning as fires move across the landscape.
What can we see when flying in planes?
NASA has a lot of activity right now. It's been an active summer.
We'll be flying in southeast Asia to understand how the smoke can changeth tropical monsoon.
From NASA's vantage point, the smoke plumes, we can take measurements to understand how the smoke changes and impacting people with air quality concerns that live thousands of miles from the fires.
E field tracking smokes from fires recently.
What they see from the air and on the ground?
There are a couple of ongoing campaigns right now above that's looking at the arctic.
We have campaigns that are continually ongoing.
It's an exciting campaign where we are looking at multiple ecosystems and flying our planes through the smoke, our d.C.A.
That's exciting.
You can't see anything when you are in a smoke plume.
But we have instruments on the side of the plane that takes in the chemical composition of the smoke and look at that time as it evolves over time.
That can impact air quality, not only close fire but downwind of the fire.
How many scientists are working on a plane and on the ground at the same time to study fires?
On the plane is probably about 28. On the ground maybe another 80 providing support.
Depending on what the campaign is and what you are looking at So that is during fire xaq, people cycle in and out. It's dynamic and exciting.
This June was the hottest June on record with data showing that July was Statistically tied for the warmest month on record.
What impact has that had on this year's fire season?
We are living in a warmer and dryer world.
With climate change, we'll see conditions that make fires more likely.
We have heard from josh about the fire triangle and making vegetation and other fuels on the ground today more flammable.
It's likely we'll see more fires and the fires that do start are more extreme. They might have a more lasting impact on ecosystems and harder to suppress.
As the climate has been warming, we are interested in tracking how fires and fire behaviour has been changing
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