• MODIS Pic of the Day 21 April 2022

    From Dan Richter@1:317/3 to All on Thursday, April 21, 2022 12:00:48
    April 21, 2022 - Smoke and Fire in Eastern Asia

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    Smoke and Fire in Eastern Asia
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    Hundreds of fires were burning in Eastern Asia in mid-April 2022,
    emitting so much smoke that much of the region was covered under a pale
    gray haze. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on
    board NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this true-color image of the
    smoky scene on April 19.

    Each red “hot spot” marks an area where the thermal bands on the MODIS
    instrument detected high temperatures. When combined with typical
    smoke, as in this image, such hot spots are diagnostic for actively
    burning fire. Although it is not possible to determine the cause of an
    individual fire from satellite imagery, the location, high number, and
    time of year strongly suggests these fires are agricultural in nature
    and were deliberately set to manage land. That doesn’t mean that all of
    the fires are used to clear land, burn stubble, renew pasture, or
    prepare fields for planting. At least one wildfire has been reported in
    China over the last week, and poorly managed agricultural fires may
    become wildfires.

    Most of the fires are spread across Northeastern China, with some
    clusters in southeastern Russia near the border with China. On the
    Korean Peninsula, only a few fires were seen in either North Korea or
    South Korea. Northeastern China is a rich agricultural region, located
    on a fertile black-earth belt, and has been called “China’s granary”
    because it produces more than a fifth of China’s grain output. Major
    crops include soybeans, corn, and japonica rice.

    Spring planting typically takes place by late April in Northeast China,
    but planting has been difficult this spring. Fertilizer and fuel costs
    have risen steeply recently, and some areas are under strict
    restrictions due to COVID. Outbreaks in the Jilin region, for example,
    triggered lockdowns that prevented plowing and planting until at least
    April 5, when some farmers could return to work as long as they
    produced negative COVID tests. Jilin is China’s second-largest corn
    producing region.

    In addition, in response to health and climate concerns related to
    widespread agricultural burning, China has instituted anti-pollution
    rules that target stubble burning, demanding that farmers stop using
    fire and start using machines to clear the fields. To small farmers,
    machine-clearing a field is both expensive and difficult, so they often
    continue to use the tried-and-true traditional methods of using fire to
    prepare land ahead of sowing the season’s crops.

    Image Facts
    Satellite: Terra
    Date Acquired: 4/19/2022
    Resolutions: 1km (492.4 KB), 500m (2 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=2022-04-21

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