VIIRS Nightfire Detections in Colombia and Venezuela, February 17, 2020

This image shows the VIIRS nightfire (VNF) detections from early this morning in the northern end of South America.  The placemarks indicate detections, which are color coded based on temperature.  Red are the hottest and are locations with natural gas flaring.  Purple, blue and green are cooler events resulting from biomass burning.  Yellow placemarks can be cooler gas flares or the biomass burning.  Each of the colored placemarks has estimates for temperature and source size based on the input of the multispectral detection radiances into physical laws. The small white place marks are pixels with detection in a single band, a condition which precludes the calculation of temperature and source size.  There is a large cluster of gas flares active in east-central Venezuela.  Biomass burning was widespread through the tropical savanna (cerrado) running from west central Venezuela into southern Colombia.  The VNF product is typically available from EOG with four hours of the satellite overpass.  EOG generates separate detection files for the tow VIIRS instruments collecting at this time, on the SNPP and NOAA-20 satellites.

2/17/2020