December 15, 2021 - Fires and Smoke in India
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Fire and Smoke in India
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A heavy haze hung over the plains at the foot of the Himalaya Mountains
in early December 2021. The Moderate Resolution Imaging
Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a
true-color image of part of the haze on December 14, 2021.
The shroud of smoke began in northern Pakistan, to the east, and
stretched more than 1,200 miles () to the foothills of the Eastern
Hills, running between India and Myanmar (Burma). The thick gray haze
also covered most of Northern and Central India, stretching from the
Himalayas to the Arabian Sea (in the west) and over Bangladesh and the
Bay of Bengal (east). In many locations, the brownish-gray haze was so
dense that it obscured the ground from view.
At least part of the haze is made up of smoke from agricultural fires,
which are widely used in northwestern India and northern Pakistan to
manage crops. The major season for burning stubble from fields is from
September to late November. Although it is late in the season, other
MODIS images confirm that clusters of fires still burn in the Punjab
region of India, contributing significantly to the smoke and haze in
this image.
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: 12/14/2021
Resolutions: 1km (454.9 KB), 500m (1.6 MB), 250m (5.1 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=2021-12-15
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