November 11, 2021 - Fires and Smoky Haze over India
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A thick shroud of smoke stretched over northern India on November 8,
2021, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on
NASA's Terra satellite acquired this true-color image of the region. On
that date, the layer of haze and smoke was so thick that it obscured
the land from view in several areas. It also hovered over parts of
Pakistan, across India, to blanket Bangladesh—a length of more than
1,200 miles (1,930 km). At the same time, smoke and haze extended more
than 1,600 miles (2,575 km) from the foot of the Himalaya Mountains to
far over the Arabian Sea.
Every year, farmers in northwest India light large numbers of small
fires between September and December to burn off rice stalks and straw
leftover after harvest, a widespread practice known as stubble or paddy
burning. The many dozens of small red dots that can be seen in
northwest India are areas where the thermal bands on the MODIS
instrument detected high temperatures. When combined with typical
smoke, as in this image, such hot spots mark actively burning fire.
Smoke is undoubtedly a major contribution to the gray pall over India,
but it is likely that both urban and industrial emissions contribute to
the haze. The atmospheric conditions also make a contribution to the
density and extent of the blanket of smoke. During the long burning
season, smoke is near-constant in northern India but it not often as
dense as seen here. In warm weather, the air nearer the ground is
warmer than the air above it, so smoke produced near the ground rises
upward and disperses high above. As cold weather arrives in the
Himalayas, cold air drops from the mountainside to linger over the
agricultural plain. This creates a temperature inversion, where a layer
of warmer air lies over a low-level cooler air layer. The warm layer
acts like a lid, effectively trapping the colder air —and any
pollutants in that layer—underneath. As a result, thick haze and smoke
continues to build until the inversion lifts.
Image Facts
Satellite: Terra
Date Acquired: 11/8/2021
Resolutions: 1km (385.1 KB), 500m (1.4 MB), 250m (4.5 MB)
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2021-11-11
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