October 4, 2021 - Color in Manitoba's many Lakes
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The province of Manitoba, Canada sits near the center of the country,
bordered by the provinces of Saskatchewan (west) and Ontario (east),
the territory of Nunavut to the north and by the United States to the
south. With a topography created by glacial movement and sitting in the
center of the Hudson Bay drainage basin, Manitoba’s low-lying prairie
land is filled with lakes—and lots of them. The abundance of waterways
has given the province the nickname “land of 100,000 lakes”. Some
experts say that Manitoba actually has more than that number—and
suggest that somewhere near 90,000 of the smaller lakes remain
nameless.
On September 28, 2021, the Moderate Resolution Imaging
Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired a
true-color image centered on three of Manitoba’s largest lakes. Lake
Winnipeg, sitting in the east, stretches 271 mi (436 km) from north to
south and covers an area of about 9,170 square miles (23,750 sq km),
making it the 11th-largest freshwater lake on Earth. Lake Winnipegosis
is oriented parallel and to the west of Winnipeg and Lake Manitoba sits
south of Winnipegosis, separated only by a 1.9 mile-wide (3 km) strip
of land.
Swirls of green color the waters of every lake within this image. These
swirls are likely caused by algae, which frequently blooms in lakes in
this region. While algae occur naturally, heavy growth is spurred by
high levels of phosphorus and nitrogen that pour into the lake each
year, primarily from human activity within the drainage basin. These
serve as fertilizers and can fuel substantial blooms, including harmful
algae blooms (HAB) which can be toxic to aquatic life and for people or
animals that wish to use or drink the waters.
In a few areas, the lakes appear exceptionally bright or even silver in
color. This is due to an optical phenomenon called “sunglint”, which is
which is caused when sunlight reflects off the surface of the water
directly back at the satellite sensor.
Image Facts
Satellite: Aqua
Date Acquired: 9/28/2021
Resolutions: 1km (410.9 KB), 500m (1 MB), 250m (2.4 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=2021-10-04
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