SeasFire as a Multivariate Earth System Datacube for Wildfire Dynamics

Abstract

The global occurrence, scale, and frequency of wildfires pose significant threats to ecosystem services and human livelihoods. To effectively quantify and attribute the antecedent conditions for wildfires, a thorough understanding of Earth system dynamics is imperative. In response, we introduce the SeasFire datacube, a meticulously curated spatiotemporal dataset tailored for global sub-seasonal to seasonal wildfire modeling via Earth observation. The SeasFire datacube comprises of 59 variables encompassing climate, vegetation, oceanic indices, and human factors, has an 8-day temporal resolution and a spatial resolution of 0.25 degrees, and spans from 2001 to 2021. We showcase the versatility of SeasFire for exploring the variability and seasonality of wildfire drivers, modeling causal links between ocean-climate teleconnections and wildfires, and predicting sub-seasonal wildfire patterns across multiple timescales with a Deep Learning model. We publicly release the SeasFire datacube and appeal to Earth system scientists and Machine Learning practitioners to use it for an improved understanding and anticipation of wildfires.

Publication
arXiv

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Ilektra Karasante
Ilektra Karasante
Data Scientist

Geologist | Geophysical Data Pipelines and Modeling

Ioannis Prapas
Ioannis Prapas
PhD Candidate

My research interests include Deep Learning, Earth Observation, Wildfire Forecasting, Modeling Earth System Dynamics.

Akanksha Ahuja
Akanksha Ahuja
Research scientist
Ioannis Papoutsis
Ioannis Papoutsis
Head of Orion Lab
Assistant Professor of Artificial Intelligence for Earth Observation @ NTUA
Adjunct Researcher @ NOA

Earth Observation, Machine Learning, Natural Hazard Monitoring