• Smoke over the United States
  • Smoke from Russian Fires
  • Dust over Mediterranean
  • Biomass Burning in Africa
  • Fires in Northwest US
  • Aerosol over the Indian sub-continent
  • Saharan Dust Transport
  • Smoke over Canada and US
  • The Perfect Dust Storm
  • 2000 Highlights

    • Smoke over the United States

    The 16-August-2001 fire summary from the United States National Interagency Fire Center:

    The national level of preparedness increased to the highest point today, as more than one half million acres are burning in 42 large fires across the United States. Nearly 21,000 firefighters are working on the fire lines.

    Record high temperatures in Oregon, Washington, and Idaho may increase large fire activity today. Predicted strong winds will challenge firefighters tomorrow.

    Click on image to obtain larger one


    13-August-2001
    14-August-2001
    15-August-2001

    16-August-2001
    17-August-2001
    18-August-2001

    Smoke from Russian Fires

    We've been seeing smoke from Russian fires for about a month or so, but this is one of the first times (if not the first time) this year we've seen it being transported across to Alaska. Since the smoke plume straddles the date line, two dates are put on the images. The first corresponds to west of the line, and the second corresponds to east of the line. Compare our image on the 5th/4th with this spectacular SeaWiFS image.

    Click on image to obtain larger one

    A smoke plume spread over northern Siberia
    4/3-August-2001

    The plume intensifies and begins to move over the Bering Strait
    5/4-August-2001

    The smoke now covers the Bering Strait and the western edge of Alaska, while a long, thin plume drifts right across the middle of the state
    6/5-August-2001

    The smoke continues over the Bering Strait into the center of Alaska
    7/6-August-2001

    Dust over the Mediterranean

    Here's an nice example of a large dust cloud being transported from the Sahara over to Spain and France

    Click on image to obtain larger one

    The cloud covers the northeastern two thirds of Spain
    31-July-2001    		 The massive cloud now sweeps from Spain into the southern part of France
    1-August-2001    		 The cloud disperses over eastern France, western Germany, Switzerland, and northern Italy
    2-August-2001

    More images of "Dust over the Mediterranean" are on a separate page.

    Biomass burning in Africa

    Previous Images

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    13-August-2001
    14-August-2001
    15-August-2001

    16-August-2001
    17-August-2001
    18-August-2001

    Fires in northwest US

    A fire in Washington state flared up dramatically on 10 July, 2001, surrounding a group of firefighters and killing four of them. On the left is an AVHRR image (from NOAA's Operational Significant Event Imagery web site) showing smoke from the fires at 5:29 PM Pacific Daylight Time on that day. On the right is a TOMS image of the aerosol index for around 12 noon on 11 July, 2001. Superimposed on the image are the NMC analysis winds at 700 mbar for noon on the 11th, indicating that the smoke seen in Canada is probably from this set of fires in Washington.

    Click on image to obtain larger one


    AVHRR


    TOMS

    Aerosols over the Indian sub-continent

    The increase in dust seen over Afghanistan, Pakistan, and northwest India may be associated with the severe drought conditions affecting this area. We've made a couple of QuickTime movies showing aerosols over this region from the beginning of May to now:

    Small (1.6 MBytes), and

    Large (5.2 MBytes).

    These movies also show the transport of dust originating from the Takla Makan and Gobi deserts in China.
    Note: The surface background image used in these 2 movies is NOT part of the TOMS aerosol index retrieval.

    Saharan Dust Transport

    Here is a nice example of Saharan dust being transported across to North America.

    Smoke over Canada and the US

    As seen here, smoke from fires in Canada was transported over to the Atlantic in May.

    Click on image to obtain larger one


    28-May-2001
    29-May-2001
    30-May-2001

    31-May-2001
    1-June-2001
    2-June-2001

    On 2-June-2001 the smoke snaked across Newfoundland, over Greenland, across Ireland, and all the way to France.


    "The Perfect Dust Storm"

    Earth Probe TOMS saw the "perfect" dust storm that originated over the deserts of Asia in April, 2001 and tracked the dust cloud as it was transported to North America.

     

    TOMS Aerosol Image Hightlights from 2000

    *The surface background image used in many of these images is NOT part of the TOMS aerosol index retrieval.

    Our thanks to the Goddard Science Visualization Studio (SVS) for developing the Display Imaging Software for the TOMS Aerosol Product.

    Back to the main TOMS web site.

    Author:
    Dr. Colin Seftor, Raytheon ITSS
    Responsible NASA official:
    Dr. Jay Herman, Principal Investigator for TOMS Aerosol/UV projects