ESA Living Planet 2015 fellowship: Soil moisture controls on fire emissions

ESA has awarded a Living Planet Postdoc fellowship 2015 to Matthias Forkel. The study called “CCI data for assessing SOil moisture controls on FIre Emissions (CCI4SOFIE)” was submitted by Wouter Dorigo (TU Wien; ESA CCI soil moisture), Matthias Forkel (MPI Biogeochemistry), Guido van der Werf (VU Amsterdam; ESA CCI Fire), and Richard de Jeu (Transmissivity; ESA CCI soil moisture) and will assess the role of soil moisture in controlling fire ignition, spread, and emissions into the atmosphere (e.g. CO2, NOx).

The study will greatly exploit the synergy between ESA CCI soil moisture and other ESA datasets, e.g., CCI fire, CCI land cover, CCI greenhouse gases, CCI aerosols, and GlobEmissions with the final goal to improve the fire emission model “SPITFIRE”. Matthias Forkel will start his fellowship at TU Wien in February 2016, while closely cooperating with the VU University Amsterdam, the Postdam Institute of Climate Impact Research, and Transmissivity.