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December 27, 2020 - Continued Smoke in India
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Heavy haze shrouded much of India on December 19, 2020, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this true-color image of the region. A long river of gray smoke and haze stretched more than 2,400 miles (2,253 km) across the Indo-Gangetic Plain from northern Pakistan nearly to Myanmar (Burma). For more than half of this length, the haze is so thick that it completely obscures the view of the land beneath. A large bank of low cloud (fog) sits at the feet of the Himalayas over Utter Pradesh.
While industrial pollution and dust can contribute to the haze, much of the haze begins from crop-burning. Traditionally, crop burning is most intense during the post-monsoon season in Haryana and Punjab, where rice and wheat are widely grown. Burning typically peaks here during November to December, a time when many farmers set fire to leftover rice stalks and straw after harvest, a practice known as stubble or paddy burning. Close to 80 percent of India’s stubble burning takes place in these two states during late fall and early winter, which often coincides with falling temperatures and slow wind speeds, meteorological conditions that can lead to temperature inversions, which trap smoke in place. The skies over the Indo-Gangetic Plain have been haze-filled since October 5, even though the highest concentration of fires in the region have diminished.
Image Facts
Satellite:
Aqua
Date Acquired: 12/19/2020
Resolutions:
1km (571.4 KB), 500m (2.1 MB),
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit:
MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
Heavy haze shrouded much of India on December 19, 2020, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired this true-color image of the region. A long river of gray smoke and haze stretched more than 2,400 miles (2,253 km) across the Indo-Gangetic Plain from northern Pakistan nearly to Myanmar (Burma). For more than half of this length, the haze is so thick that it completely obscures the view of the land beneath. A large bank of low cloud (fog) sits at the feet of the Himalayas over Utter Pradesh.
While industrial pollution and dust can contribute to the haze, much of the haze begins from crop-burning. Traditionally, crop burning is most intense during the post-monsoon season in Haryana and Punjab, where rice and wheat are widely grown. Burning typically peaks here during November to December, a time when many farmers set fire to leftover rice stalks and straw after harvest, a practice known as stubble or paddy burning. Close to 80 percent of India’s stubble burning takes place in these two states during late fall and early winter, which often coincides with falling temperatures and slow wind speeds, meteorological conditions that can lead to temperature inversions, which trap smoke in place. The skies over the Indo-Gangetic Plain have been haze-filled since October 5, even though the highest concentration of fires in the region have diminished.
Image Facts
Satellite:
Aqua
Date Acquired: 12/19/2020
Resolutions:
1km (571.4 KB), 500m (2.1 MB),
Bands Used: 1,4,3
Image Credit:
MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
