Post-fire trajectories of MODIS land surface properties and their impact on the Noah land surface model

Two independent observational datasets, the MODIS burned area product and Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) data, are spatially compared over the western United States for fires occurring between 2000 and 2007 to determine the amount of overlap between datasets. For overlapping areas, MODIS land surface property datasets (albedo, LAI, fPAR, GPP, NDVI, emissivity) are used to determine post-burn trajectories based on MTBS burn severity index. These land surface property trajectories are then incorporated into the Noah land surface model to determine the fire impact on subsequent energy and water fluxes. Fire occurrences, determined by the MODIS burned area product, are included into Noah within the framework of the High Resolution Land Data Assimilation System (HRLDAS). Results are shown from 10-year simulations over Western North America at 1km spatial resolution starting 1 Jan 2000.