Annual rasterised BARD burned area reference data for MRBA60 validation

Description This dataset contains annual reference burned area layers derived from BARD (Burned Area Reference Database; https://doi.org/10.21950/BBQQU7) and rasterized to a regular 0.25° global grid in WGS84 (EPSG:4326). The data were generated to validate the MRBA60 product against independent reference information. Each NetCDF file contains annual burned area per grid cell, expressed in square metres (m²), for the period 2017–2024. Processing The original validation data were reprojected to lat-lon coordinates, intersected with a 0.25° global grid, and used to calculate burned area per grid cell in square metres. Annual layers were then obtained by summing the previously generated monthly rasters cell by cell. During the annual aggregation, positive values were summed as burned area. Negative values, corresponding to not burable and not observed categories, were not included in the sum. A value of -2 in the dataset indicate that the grid cell did not have reference data associated to it in that year. Product characteristics Characteristic Description Format NetCDF Temporal coverage 2017–2024 Temporal resolution Annual Spatial resolution 0.25° × 0.25° Coordinate reference system WGS84 (EPSG:4326) Extent Global (-180°/180°, -90°/90°) Grid size 1440 × 720 Main variable burned_area Units m² Data type Float32 Value coding Value Meaning > 0 Annual burned area in m² 0 Valid cell with no burned area -2 Cell outside the valid reference For totals or validation metrics, values equal to -2 must be excluded. Values equal to 0 should be retained as valid observations. Recommended use These data are intended for annual validation of MRBA60 and other burned area products aggregated to 0.25°. Comparisons should be restricted to the valid reference data. Limitations This product is a rasterized and aggregated version of the original BARD data. It does not preserve the full spatial detail of the original reference polygons and should not replace BARD when validation at native reference resolution is required. Quick checks ncdump -h BARD_rasterized_burned_area_2017_025deg_annual_v1.0.nc cdo sinfo BARD_rasterized_burned_area_2017_025deg_annual_v1.0.nc cdo infon BARD_rasterized_burned_area_2017_025deg_annual_v1.0.nc