• MODIS Pic of the Day 15 July 2022

    From Dan Richter@1:317/3 to All on Fri Jul 15 12:00:38 2022
    July 15, 2022 - Fires in South Africa and Mozambique

    Fires
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    Dozens of fires and copious smoke covered portions of southeastern
    Africa in mid-July 2022. The Moderate Resolution Imaging
    Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a
    true-color image of the smoky scene on July 14.

    The countries captured in this image include Mozambique (north), which
    is roughly covered by a shroud of blue-tinted smoke, Eswatini (formerly
    Swaziland), northeastern South Africa (south), and Lesotho. Many red
    “hot spots”, each indicating fire, are found in Mozambique, but most
    are spread across South Africa. Eswatini, a small country that sits on
    the border between Mozambique and South Africa, roughly near the
    southern edge of the smoke and a break in the mountain ridge, appears
    to have only has one or two fires burning near its borders. Lesotho,
    which sits southwest of Eswatini and is completely surrounded by South
    Africa, has zero fires evident.

    While it is not possible to determine the cause of the fires nor if
    they are wildfires or deliberately set or managed simply by looking at
    a satellite image, given the time of year, location, and widespread
    nature of the fires it is likely that most are agricultural fires—fires
    that are used to manage cropland or pasture.

    Image Facts
    Satellite: Terra
    Date Acquired: 7/14/2022
    Resolutions: 1km (195.2 KB), 500m (722.6 KB), 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=2022-07-15

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