[Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer] Code 916

TOMS Aerosol Hot Spot Images for 2001
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Today's Global Aerosol Conditions from Earth Probe TOMS

INDEX

  • Biomass Burning in Africa
  • Biomass Burning in South America
  • Smoke from fires in Australia
  • Smoke over the United States
  • Smoke from Russian Fires
  • Dust over the Mediterranean
  • Saharan Dust Transport
  • Smoke over Canada and US
  • The Perfect Dust Storm
  • 2000 Highlights

    • Dust over Europe

    From Earthweek -- A Diary of the Planet:

    Saharan Surprise

    Residents of southern and southwestern Sweden awakened to find their cars and buildings coated with a layer of superfine sand from the Sahara Desert.

    The extremely fine particles were reddish-brown or ochre, and had a texture similar to flour. The Swedish Environmental Research Institute reported that microscopic sand crystals were transported for thousands of miles by strong northerly winds, which had swept the African desert around Oct. 11. The dusty mass fell to the ground over Sweden when rains dispersed the particles from the atmosphere.

    (Well, it wasn't a suprise to anyone who checked this web site!)

    Click on image to obtain larger one


    9-October-2001
    10-October-2001
    11-October-2001

    12-October-2001
    13-October-2001
    14-October-2001

    15-October-2001
    16-October-2001
    17-October-2001

    Another huge cloud moved across Europe in late October. Here's a comparison of what SeaWiFS saw with what TOMS saw on 31-October.

    Biomass burning in Africa

    Previous Images

    The fires in southern Africa were severe this year.

    Click on image to obtain larger one


    12-October-2001
    13-October-2001
    14-October-2001

    15-October-2001
    16-October-2001
    17-October-2001

    Biomass burning in South America

    Previous Images

    Click on image to obtain larger one


    11-October-2001
    12-October-2001
    13-October-2001

    14-October-2001
    15-October-2001
    16-October-2001

    Smoke over Australia

    Click on image to obtain larger one


    5-September-2001
    6-September-2001
    7-September-2001

    8-September-2001
    9-September-2001
    10-September-2001

    Smoke over the United States

    Previous Images

    Click on image to obtain larger one


    5-September-2001
    6-September-2001
    7-September-2001

    8-September-2001
    9-September-2001
    10-September-2001

    Smoke from Russian Fires

    We've seen a lot of smoke from fires in Russia 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

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

    Saharan Dust Transport

    Here is a nice example of Saharan dust being transported across to North America as seen by TOMS.

    Smoke over Canada and the 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

    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