Improving Seviri Based Hot Spots Detection by Using Multiple Simultaneous Observations

Abstract

Geostationary satellites like MSG allows to detect and monitor thermal anomalies (wild fires, volcanic eruption) with a refresh frequency ranging from 5 to 15 min. Such a frequency meets the requirements of the institutions involved in contrasting the fire events and could provide information on the temporal behavior of the fire (through Fire Radiative Power, FRP) and the spatial distribution of the events with the related hazard for the population and infrastructure when more occurrences are simultaneously present. A limitation to the operational applicability of this tool is represented by the present low spatial resolution of the MSG/SEVIRI sensor ranging from 3 km at the equator to 4.5 km at Mediterranean latitudes. Whereas the limitations related to the sensitivity of the geostationary sensor to fire sizes has been, at least in part, overcome by introducing specific algorithms, the reduced accuracy in the geographic localization of the fire, which can, in principle, occupy any position in an area of about 16 km2 (at Mediterranean latitude) makes this information not very much interesting for the institutions involved in fire fighting. This paper is focused on the analysis of the feasibility of improving the localization of the thermal anomalies (hot spots) based on geostationary sensors by combining images acquired simultaneously from different MSG satellites located at different longitudes. In particular, we combine the images acquired by MSG-9 (RSS) located at long. 9.0° and MSG-8 (IODC) located at long. 40.5°. The results seem to confirm the possibility to improve the accuracy of the detection by exploiting the observation of the events from different position in the space.