January 5, 2022 - Amazon Rainforest

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The Amazon rainforest has been called a “place of near-mythical
status”, filled with green vegetation, towering trees, wide rivers, and
alive with creatures of every description—from howler monkeys and
blazingly gorgeous birds hiding the canopy, to jaguars on the prowl, to
bright-colored poison-dart frogs camouflaged on the moist forest floor.
Stretching over about forty percent of South America, the Amazon spans
eight countries, including Brazil, Bolivia, Peru, Ecuador, Colombia,
Venezuela, Guyana, and Suriname as well as French Guiana, which is an
overseas territory of France. The dense forests are estimated to span
1.4 billion acres and give home to one in ten species known on Earth,
and some species that have not been fully described. According to the
World Wildlife Fund, the Amazon is home to 40,000 plant species, 2,400
freshwater fish species and more than 370 types of reptiles. Just to
illustrate the incredible biodiversity, 610 species of birds are found
in the Yasuni Biosphere Reserve alone, a park of only 1.6 million
hectares located in northern Ecuador.

The Amazon is critical to our Earth’s well-being not just for the
intense biodiversity, or the richness of the soils, or the spiritual
connection found by many in the deep rainforest setting. The Amazon
rainforest also plays a vital and critical role in moderating global
warming, thanks to the dense vegetation which absorbs millions of tons
of carbon emissions each year. Deforestation—which removes the carbon
stored as biomass and releases it into the atmosphere while reducing
forest size—is a major threat to the rainforest and to the health of
the Earth. Another threat requiring mitigation is the drying of the
Amazon’s humid rainforests as an effect of climate warming.

On January 3, 2022, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
(MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a true-color image of
the Amazon. This view includes parts of Ecuador (southwest), Colombia
(north) and Brazil (east). The Andes Mountains of Ecuador and Colombia
can be seen near the left (west) edge of the image, with clouds
covering the western face of the mountains. Numerous tan-colored
rivers, rich with sediment, flow from the mountains into the rich,
dense green of the rainforest.

Gray haze, suggestive of smoke from fires, hangs over the southwestern
section of the image. While this image does not highlight the hot spots
typical of actively burning fire, when thermal imagery is added as an
overlay, it is clear that the gray haze is indeed smoke. The smoke rose
from multiple fires burning in the agricultural areas (light green)
near Florencia, Colombia. Many fires appeared to sit at the edge of the
rainforest of that country, while others were in agricultural fields.
According to Global Forest Watch, the fire season in Florencia
generally begins in mid-January and lasts for ten weeks.

Image Facts
Satellite: Terra
Date Acquired: 1/3/2022
Resolutions: 1km (709.4 KB), 500m (1.9 MB), 250m (1.3 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=2022-01-05
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