Energy Cycle (Ichoku, Gatebe, Wang)

To what extent does the seasonal biomass burning affect land-cover and ecosystem changes, surface albedo, smoke and dust emissions, atmospheric heating rates, and the consequent radiative forcing in the NSSA region?

Water Cycle (Lee, Bolten, Policelli, Wilcox)

How do these surface and atmospheric changes affect rainfall variability, soil moisture content and retention, surface runoff, infiltration, and the groundwater mass balance, particularly in the Lake Chad basin and surrounding regions?

Interactions and Feedbacks (Wilcox, Matsui, Wang, Damoah)

What are the relative magnitudes and spatial distributions of the various forcing and feedback effects that link the different phenomena both within the NSSA region and the adjoining regions?

Climate and Society (Adegoke, Engelbrecht, Ichoku, Okonkwo)

How will the NSSA regional climate and ecosystem balance be affected by the current degradation trend due to biomass burning, and how can this be mitigated to enhance societal benefits both in the present and the future?

Ground-Truthing and Field Verification (Lee, Adegoke, Bolten, Goni, Ichoku)

For atmospheric processes, airborne measurements from past field campaigns, such as AMMA/NAMMA, SAFARI-2000, and continuous measurements from AERONET and other ground-based monitoring stations will be used. However, for accurate parameterization and verification of the ground-based processes, a strategic field survey will be conducted in the vicinity of Lake Chad throughout the 3-year period of the proposed research, in collaboration with our partners at LCBC in Chad and University of Maiduguri (UMaid) in Nigeria.

End-User Engagement and Result Implementation (Habib, Ichoku, Adegoke)

To further pursue engagements with both national and regional agencies, including the Chad Basin Development Authority (CBDA) and the river basin authorities of the rivers that feed into Lake Chad, and to enlarge its scope, because it is anticipated that our results could be beneficial in a variety of ways to various regional and international organizations with interest in the NSSA region, such as the LCBC for water resources management, the UNDP for planning strategies and setting their development support priorities, and the IPCC for use in future climate assessments. Also, we will actualize collaboration with Regional Centre for Mapping of Resources for Development (RCMRD) to leverage the SERVIR-Africa infrastructure and their regional knowledge for dissemination of valuable results to applications communities with training options for sustainable implementation of positive solutions.

Abstract

The northern sub-Saharan African (NSSA) region, extending from the southern fringes of the Sahara to the Equator, and stretching west to east from the Atlantic to the Indian ocean coasts, plays a prominent role in the genesis of global atmospheric circulation and the birth of such major (and often catastrophic) events as hurricanes and the distribution of the Saharan dust to other parts of the world. Therefore, this NSSA region represents a critical variable in the global climate change equation. Recent satellite-based studies have revealed that the NSSA region has one of the highest biomass-burning rates per unit land area among all regions of the world. Because of the high concentration and frequency of fires in this region, with the associated abundance of heat release and gaseous and particulate smoke emissions, biomass-burning activity is believed to be a major driver of the regional carbon, energy, and water cycles. We acknowledge that the rainy season in the NSSA region is from April to September while biomass burning occurs mainly during the dry season (October to March). Nevertheless, these two phenomena are indirectly coupled to each other through a chain of complex processes and conditions, including land-cover and surface-albedo changes, the carbon cycle, evapotranspiration, drought, desertification, surface water runoff, ground water recharge, and variability in atmospheric composition, heating rates, and circulation. We propose an interdisciplinary research effort, which seeks to address the effects of the intense biomass burning observed from satellite year after year across the NSSA region on the rapid depletion of the regional water resources, as exemplified by the dramatic drying of Lake Chad. This proposal brings together a multi-disciplinary team of scientists from different but complimentary fields of expertise to embark on an integrated study that will unravel the coupling of these phenomena and associated processes and outcomes. Through this effort we aim to provide a robust analysis of the impacts of recent (2000 to the present) biomass-burning by monitoring and assessing multiple regional surface, atmospheric, and water cycle processes through remote sensing and modeling approaches that integrate research, systems engineering, and applications expertise to best make the connections between the various identified processes and phenomena, in order to achieve concrete results for societal benefits and climate assessments. This proposal responds to two main subelements of this ROSES-2009 Interdisciplinary Research in Earth Science (IDS) program solicitation, namely, (i) Subelement 5: Water and Energy Cycle Impacts of Biomass Burning, and (ii) Subelement 1: Integrated Earth System Responses to Extreme Disturbances.

Biomass burning, radiative heat release, and smoke emission (Ichoku)

The phenomenal seasonal biomass burning all across the vegetated parts of the NSSA study region will be critically studied to understand its impacts on ecosystem changes, and the effects of the generated heat and smoke on the hydrological cycle. Biomass burning intensity is best studied from satellite measurements of fire radiative power (FRP), which are presently available globally only from the Moderate-resolution imaging spectro-radiometer (MODIS) sensor aboard the Terra and Aqua satellites. MODIS measures FRP globally 4 times a day at 1-km spatial resolution. FRP has been demonstrated to be directly related to the rates of biomass consumption and smoke emission [Wooster, 2002; Ichoku and Kaufman, 2005; Wooster et al., 2005; Roberts et al., 2005; Ichoku et al., 2008]. All FRP data acquired by MODIS from the start of scientific data availability (February 2000) up to the time of research (10 years or more) will be analyzed, in order to evaluate the rates of biomass burning and smoke particulate emission, and how they may have changed during the decade. FRP data derived from the Spinning Enhanced Visible and Infrared Imager (SEVIRI) sensor onboard the geostationary Meteosat-8 platform, which observes Africa and Europe virtually every 15 mins at 3-km spatial resolution, will be used to complement MODIS FRP data in order to derive the total daily/monthly/seasonal burned biomass and smoke aerosol emissions. Aerosol measurements from MODIS will be used in combination with the smoke emissions to evaluate the smoke fraction of the total aerosol. Plume height products from the Multi-angle Imaging Spectro-Radiometer (MISR) sensor aboard Terra will be used, in combination with lidar atmospheric profile from CALIPSO, to determine smoke plume height relative to the boundary layer height, as a means of establishing the degree of physical interaction between smoke aerosols, dust, clouds, and radiation. To establish the linkage between fires and ecosystem changes, we will also analyze burned area and vegetation products from MODIS. The derived results will be provided as input to several of the other analysis and modeling efforts described below, as well as for use in applications to benefit the regional and global societies.

Surface albedo changes due to biomass burning (Gatebe)

This part of the study will focus on quantitative estimation of biomass burning impacts on surface albedo variations both spatially and temporally. The land surface bidirectional reflectance distribution function (BRDF) and albedo products derived from MODIS 10-year dataset will be used to check the sensitivity of the surface albedo to anthropogenic biomass burning activities over the NSSA region, especially during the fire season, taking into account the results from the fire and landcover change analysis described in the Biomass burning, radiative heat release, and smoke emission section. We will develop an approach to delineate the sub-regions of the NSSA region whose albedo seasonal cycle is significantly affected by biomass burning. The performance of the method will be evaluated by comparison with results of combined aircraft and MODIS data analysis over southern Africa, where the SAFARI 2000 field campaign took place in 2000 and over Canada where the ARCTAS field campaign took place in 2008. Together with the other team members of this proposal, we will investigate how the resulting surface brightening/darkening phenomena affect the surface and atmospheric heating rates, moisture regime and rainfall, and their implications for the regional climate.

Atmospheric heating rates due to fire and smoke aerosols (Wang)

The atmospheric heating rates resulting from direct heat release from fires and direct radiative forcing due to the interaction of the solar radiation and the smoke will be carefully investigated. This will be done using the RAMS-AROMA model, which is a composite atmospheric model that integrates: (i) RAMS: a non-hydrostatic atmospheric model that has been successfully used to simulate a wide range of dynamical phenomena [e.g., Pielke et al., 1992, Adegoke et al. 2003], and (ii) AROMA: an aerosol transport model that includes aerosol emission, advection, convection (vertical motion), dry and wet deposition processes, and direct radiative effects [Wang et al., 2006]. The fire radiative energy and smoke emission products derived from the Biomass burning, radiative heat release, and smoke emission section will be used as input into the RAMS-AROMA to study their radiative impacts on surface energy budget and atmospheric lapse rate. The changes of sensible heat, latent heat, and total solar input at the surface will be used as part of the inputs (by other Co-Is) to drive the NASA Land Information Systems (LIS) and other hydrology models for studying the smoke impacts on the change of surface run-off and water budget.

Ecosystem changes, soil moisture, and surface water cycle (Bolten, Policelli)

An important part of the proposed project is to determine the relationship between the increase in land surface exposure, and surface and atmospheric heating caused by biomass burning and subsequent changes in surface evaporation and water loss during the dry season in the NSSA region (October to March). We aim to evaluate the degree to which the water and energy budget components are affected by changes in surface and atmospheric heating from biomass burning by examining their temporal trend and correlation during observed burning events. Our initial approach will include the use of land surface modeling, regression analyses, and machine-learning techniques including neural networks [e.g. Egmont-Petersen et al., 2002] to isolate the energy and water balance variables that are susceptible to change from biomass burning. This will be done by careful examination of the individual land surface modeling variables and parameters with regard to biomass burning events (e.g., burn scars) throughout the data record. Such a methodology will also allow a 'scenario analysis' and/or 'impact maps' to be performed based on sensitivity analysis over the region. The project team will use a variety of datasets from different sources to train and validate the neural networks developed during the course of this project, including satellite-based estimates of burn area, surface and air temperature, soil moisture, precipitation, and terrestrial water storage. We expect that knowledge learned from this approach will strengthen our ability to understand underlying cause and effect relationships, and ultimately to describe and model the detailed processes linking these parameters. By applying the calculated changes in land cover and surface energy budget within a land surface model, we can analyze the impact of the changes in forcing to individual water cycle elements including surface soil moisture, river runoff, and terrestrial water storage. This approach will be strengthened through the optimization and validation of the land surface models within the NASA Land Information System (LIS) using in situ data (already acquired under the auspices of the AMMA/NAMMA initiative and a separate Lake Chad project, in which Lee and Adegoke in our proposal team are currently involved, as indicated in the Groundwater systems evaluation, with focus on the drying of Lake Chad and relationship to biomass burning and climate section).

Effects of fires and smoke aerosols on clouds and precipitation (Wilcox)

Several studies have noted the potential role of aerosols as a contributing factor to the late 20th century Sahel drought [e.g. Rotstayn and Lohmann, 2002; Held et al. 2005]. These studies argue that the pattern of cooling of Atlantic Ocean sea surface temperatures owing to the absorption and scattering of dust, pollution, and smoke provides the mechanism for altering rainfall patterns over the Sahel. Recent modeling results argue that transport of smoke and dust from the NSSA region leads to a lower tropospheric thermal anomaly through direct absorption of solar energy, which is sufficient to shift Sahel rain patterns northward [Lau et al. 2009]. Observations over the Atlantic Ocean are consistent with this response [Wilcox et al., in preparation]. These results imply an important coupling between emissions of smoke and dust from biomass burning and desertification and surface hydrology through the response of precipitation patterns to the radiative forcing of the aerosols. Furthermore, results from the AMMA and NAMMA field campaigns indicate that African smoke and dust can act as nuclei for cloud drops and ice [Twohy et al. 2009; A. Jefferson, personal communication]. Therefore, there are potentially strong impacts via aerosol modification of clouds to impact both the surface energy balance over NSSA and the sea surface temperature of the Atlantic Ocean. NASA models and satellite data sets will be used to test the sensitivity of precipitation patterns over Africa to these processes. Thus we will include the soil moisture retrievals (discussed in the Ecosystem changes, soil moisture, and surface water cycle section) in these analyses as well. Of particular interest will be satellite-based characterizations of the response of soil moisture to the precipitation pattern, the response of the African Easterly Jet to the soil moisture pattern, and the response of precipitation patterns to the presence of smoke, dust, and pollution. The satellite data must be interpreted in the context of sensitivity tests using an appropriate model. In the case of the interrelationships noted above, we rely on GEOS-5. Our group is funded (through the NASA ROSES-2008 Modeling and Analysis Program) to improve and test a comprehensive parameterization for aerosol direct and indirect (via aerosol-cloud-precipitation interactions) radiative forcing [Sud and Lee, 2007]. Under the current proposal, we will pursue a set of sensitivity studies varying the rate of aerosol emissions and controlling the variability of soil moisture to reveal separately the role of each of these components in driving precipitation variability.

Groundwater systems evaluation, with focus on the drying of Lake Chad and relationship to biomass burning and climate (Lee, Adegoke)

Understanding the interactions between surface water and ground water is critical to finding out how climate change and land-cover change due to biomass burning in the NSSA affects the shrinkage of Lake Chad. Preliminary studies have been conducted to understand the soil infiltration toward the upper aquifer, which is one of the three aquifer layers in the Lake Chad Basin. Since significant volumes of water are being extracted from the two lower aquifers by the local communities, more thorough and comprehensive analysis of the hydrological interactions in the lake system and the effects of climate and land-cover changes on the deeper aquifers are necessary for understanding the shrinkage of the lake. As a means of integrating the conditions and processes of land-surface and climate changes with those of the multi-layered aquifers, we will implement a composite computational modeling process based on three modeling components – a satellite data model, a climate data model, and a physically-based hydrologic model. WetSpass (Water and Energy Transfer between Soil, Plants and Atmosphere under quasi Steady State) and MODFLOW (a 3D Finite-Difference Modular Groundwater Flow Model) will be employed as the physically-based hydrologic models. WetSpass is a water balance-based model used to estimate spatially-varying groundwater recharge and surface runoff with consideration of soil properties, land use, topography, groundwater depth, and meteorological data [Batelaan and Smedt, 2007; Lee et al., 2009]. These input data sets required for WetSpass will be obtained from satellite data models. The ASTER 30-m and SRTM 90-m digital elevation data will be used to construct the topographic morphology, while the US Geological Survey’s 30 arc-second digital elevation model (GTOPO30) will provide topographically derived data sets including streams, drainage basins and ancillary layers. The MODIS 250-m land-cover products will provide the geospatial distribution of land covers for the NSSA region. The spatial distribution of soil properties will be constructed by using a digital soil map from the Food and Agriculture Organization. The GRACE (Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment) satellite data and the GLDAS (Global Land Data Assimilation System) model will be employed to construct an initial groundwater elevation model for WetSpass. The outputs of WetSpass are spatial distributions of groundwater recharge and surface runoff, which will be used to update the initial groundwater elevation by using MODFLOW. The satellite data analysis and modeling of the groundwater elevations, recharge, and outflow will be calibrated and validated with field monitoring data currently being acquired by Lee and Adegoke through their on-going research projects funded separately by the US National Science Foundation (NSF) and the Nigerian National Space Research and Development Agency (NASRDA).

Climate implications of biomass-burning-induced changes (Adegoke)

Recent climate simulation studies over the India/Indian Ocean region showed that dust and black carbon (largely from biomass burning) aerosols have the potential to modify the regional climate [e.g. Ramanathan et al., 2005]. An additional pathway to these simulated climate changes could be the feedbacks associated with land–atmosphere interactions that are ignored in aerosol climate studies. We will conduct regional climate model studies over the NSSA region to gain new insights on the coupling between aerosols and cloud properties (micro and macrophysical). A key focus will be mesoscale convection during the monsoon season due to differential heating resulting from both gradients in surface and Boundary Layer (BL) fluxes from surface landscape heterogeneity and to aerosol plumes resulting from the regional biomass burning activities. Specifically, we will utilize the Colorado State University (CSU) Regional Atmospheric Modeling System (RAMS) and the mesoscale Weather Research and Forecast (WRF) model to conduct a range of experiments to test the sensitivity of changes in radiative feedback over the NSSA region. These modeling studies will incorporate configurations of the Noah land surface model, the Medium Range Forecast (MRF) model boundary layer scheme, and the Kain Fritsch cumulus parameterization. Following recent work conducted Adegoke et al. [2009] on the impacts of land surface heterogeneity on warm season precipitation and by Niyogi et al. [2007] on the sensitivity of monsoonal land–atmosphere interactions to radiative feedbacks in the Indian sub-region, we will conduct several simulations focusing on the NSSA region, that incorporate: (1) Rapid Radiative Transfer Model (RRTM) scheme for control; (2) Eta operational radiation scheme; (3) Prescribed increase in optical depth in the RRTM scheme. The simulations will provide insight on the effect of changes in the radiative scheme and on the impact of surface changes and increased aerosol loading (optical depth) due to biomass burning on BL processes, including the convectively available potential energy (CAPE). We will use the appropriate climate models, such as climRAMS [Liston and Pielke, 2000], to evaluate the long-term impacts of biomass burning on the regional climate by conducting multi-year regional climate model (RCM) integrations.

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