October 29, 2022 - Aerosols over India
Aerosols
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A shroud of haze stretched along the Indo-Gangetic Plain, stretching
from Pakistan in the west to reach Bangladesh in the east in late
October 2022.
The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board
NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired a true-color image of about half of the
gray cloud of aerosols on October 26. The gray haze becomes thickest
over Utter Pradesh, where it obscures the land beneath from view.
Clusters of red hot spots, each representing actively burning fire, sit
in northeastern Pakistan and northwest India. They are thickest in the
Indian states of Punjab and Haryana, where rice and wheat are widely
grown. These are primarily agricultural fires, primarily used to clear
stubble from fields after harvest. Crop burning typically peaks during
the first week of November a time that often coincides with falling
temperatures and slow wind speeds, meteorological conditions that can
lead to temperature inversions, which trap smoke in place.
The fires release several types of gases into the atmosphere, including
smog-forming carbon monoxide and nitrogen dioxide. They also release
aerosols, such as black carbon and organic carbon, that contribute to
elevated levels of PM2.5, which can cause health problems.
While agricultural burning contributes heavily to the aerosol pollution
and haze over the Indo-Gangetic Plain, it is not the only factor.
Industry, coal burning for heat, and automobile emissions also heavily
contribute to aerosol pollution in the region.
Image Facts
Satellite: Aqua
Date Acquired: 10/28/2022
Resolutions: 1km (522.7 KB), 500m (1.8 MB), 250m (5.7 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=2022-10-29
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