the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
| 15 Aug 2025
Spatial influence of agriculture residue burning and aerosols on land surface temperature
Abstract. The biophysical effect of agriculture-residue based fire through excessive release of energy and carbonaceous aerosols essentially unaccounted globally. Elucidating climate feedback from residue-based fire however, remain pertinent as energy released from fire pose potential to modify land surface temperature (LST) thereby, regional climate. Here, an observation-driven assessment of spatial change in LST due to concurrent release of energy and aerosols has been explored over northwest India using multiple satellite and reanalysis-based datasets. Initially, year-specific fire pixel density was computed to identify intensive fire zone encompassing only medium to large fire. Spatial analysis revealed positive correlation among FRP (fire radiative power), LST and AOD (aerosol optical depth) across the intensive fire zone. Residue-based fire accounted an increase in LST by 0.48 °C and AOD by 0.19 yearly during peak fire season over intensive fire zone. A Random Forest non-linear model was used to regress potential influence of FRP and AOD on LST. Two pre-constructed scenarios were evaluated to ascertain FRP-AOD-LST nexus. Interestingly, both scenarios recognized FRP as a top predictor to influence LST followed by solar radiation and AOD. A significant enhancement in relative feature importance of FRP was also noted during days having high fire intensity and positive association against LST. Geographically Weighted Regression further explained spatial heterogeneity in LST modulation by FRP. Our analysis therefore, provides first evidence on crop residue-based fire on modifying regional climate by altering land surface temperature. It also underlines that extent of such perturbation is subject to year-specific fire intensity and govern by meteorology.
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Status: open (until 26 Sep 2025)
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RC1: 'Comment on egusphere-2025-3163', Anonymous Referee #1, 04 Sep 2025
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This manuscript try to address the relationship between fire radiative power (FRP), aerosol optical depth (AOD), and land surface temperature (LST) in northwestern India using multi-source remote sensing data combined with machine learning (random forest) and spatial regression (GWR). The topic is timely and relevant, particularly in the context of agricultural residue burning and its climatic impacts. The integration of multiple data sets and methods is commendable.
However, the current version has several shortcomings: the grammars and sentences are so poor, the transparency of data and methodology is limited, the interpretation of results is sometimes superficial and overly focused on correlations, and the discussion of mechanisms and uncertainties is insufficient. The conclusions also need to highlight the novelty and practical implications more clearly. With revisions to strengthen the grammars, methodological rigor, deepen interpretation, and improve clarity of presentation, this paper could make a valuable contribution. I recommend a major revision before it could be accepted.
Major Comments
- The manuscript suffers from awkward sentence structures, grammatical errors, and weak logical transitions, which significantly reduce its readability and overall fluency. The authors should revise these basic problems as these have actually lowered the paper’s quality. For example, it’s hard to understand clearly without more following contexts when reading the first sentence in the abstract.
- Clarity of research gap and contribution: The introduction should more clearly state why the FRP–LST relationship is poorly understood and what gap this study fills.
- Data description and transparency: Core datasets, resolutions, and time spans should be reported in the main text. Random forest and GWR parameter choices must be described for reproducibility. One table including all the datasets, period and their parameters, and a workflow on how to deal with the datasets and the following methods would be better to understand for both the reviewers and readers. Here is a reference: Figure 4 from https://doi.org/10.1016/j.rse.2025.114917.
- Methodology: The two-scenario design is interesting but may introduce bias. Justification and limitations should be explained. Too many scales are used, so it’s hard to compare between each other in a uniform The uncertainties should be discussed.
- How can the authors explain well the relationships between fire and climate without using the climate model output and discussions on the aerosols?
- Results: Figures need clearer captions and higher resolution. Results should include approximate magnitudes (e.g., RMSE in °C).
- Discussion: Too correlation-focused; mechanisms (direct heating, aerosol–radiation effects, meteorology) should be elaborated. AOD’s nonlinear effect at high values needs more explanation.
- Uncertainty and validation: Retrieval errors, short time series, and possible multicollinearity should be acknowledged. Additional trend tests could be considered.
- Conclusions: Should better emphasize novelty and implications for residue burning management and regional climate. Future directions could be more concrete.
Minor Comments
- The titles of both manuscirpt and supplementary are different, besides “agriculture residue burning” should be “agricultural residue burning” or “crop residue burning”, please keep the same and double check before uploading.
- Use more formal academic expressions instead of colloquial wording. Language editing for conciseness and precision.
- L10, 28, “The biophysical effect of agriculture-residue based fire through excessive release of energy and carbonaceous aerosols essentially unaccounted globally” and the last sentence (L28) as and the sentences should be organized to state your meanings clearly.
- L23, can the authors explain more on the how ‘significant’, which is vague for the readers. Avoid using ‘significant’ without numbers added.
- L25, Geographically Weighted Regression should be “Geographically weighted regression (GWR)”.
- L56, add the official reference of “4.1 million ha”.
- L65-66, “with roughly 20-25% i.e. 100-120 MT/yr residues usually burn in the field itself, majority (~20-25 MT/yr) of such practised over northwest Gangetic plain”, this is not a good sentence for people to understand what the authors want to share, please find some porfessional people to help refine it.
- L70, do the authors really think that the fire occurrences will increase the vegetation index? Present why.
- L71, Beside -> Besides
- L73-74, ‘be it’ is this the right grammar? And why there is a commar after the prepositions, such as thereby and however in the middle of the sentences.
- L82, add references to support the authors’ statements.
- L86, is surface albedo a process, or its changing?
- L90, enhance is a verb, enhancement?
- L93, evident should be a verb?
- L97, agriculture farmland-> agricultural farmland, agriculture residue burning -> agricultural residue burning
- L101, cop?
- L102, what remained valid till 1~3 day?
- L108, the reanalysis is model output, do the authors mean reanalysis is treated as observations here?
- L111, Several statistical means were explored -> Several statistical methods were applied?
- L124, food grain generation-> food grain production
- L137, please use the dotted line when ploting the disputed boundary in the small figure, especially between India and its neighbouring coutries such as China, Pakistan and etc.
- L176, the defination of LST (Land surface radiometric temperature) is conflict with the one (Land surface temperature) in L89.
- L185, a uncertainty-> an uncertainty
- L185-186, Both daytime maximum and nighttime minimum LST approximately at 1:30 PM and 1:30 AM local time respectively, are available. -> The dataset provides daytime maximum LST (at 1:30 PM local time) and nighttime minimum LST (at 1:30 AM local time).
- L187-189, any relationships between the previous sentence and this one, why use however?
- L194, can the authors explain more on ±(0.05+20%)?
- L197, why not use a ROI to define the “selected spatial domain”?
- L284, fulfilling -> to fulfill.
- Figure captions: combine it and the NOTE as one caption according to the journal’s requirement.
- L525, format the caption of Fig. 7 as previous ones.
- L 535-538, this sentence should be moved into Section 2.8.
- L561-564, I am confused if there are any evidences or results to show the relationships between FRP, LST and the regional climate/human health. This could be discussion, but this can not be the result without any evindences shown.
- L592, GWR has been defined.
- L607, the statements of ‘fire impact the regional climate’ are not strong based on the results as only some discussions are shown in the manuscript.
- The conclusion is overly repetitive and needs to be reorganized and easy-understanding. Usually, in the Conclusion part, no more references are needed.
- Improve cross-references between text and figures. The references are not well cited in the EGU style, please read https://www.atmospheric-chemistry-and-physics.net/submission.html carefully and revise them.
Citation: https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-2025-3163-RC1
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