MODIS News and Events
When the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument on NASA’s Terra satellite passed over northern Minnesota on May 12, 2013, spring had transformed winter’s snowy white landscape into shades of green and brown. But several lakes remained stubbornly white. In 2013, unseasonably cool spring weather has left ice choking many of Minnesota’s lakes weeks longer than usual. Read more
The Caspian Sea isn’t really a sea but in fact a giant lake that spans roughly 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) from north to south. In the winter, ice often forms over the lake’s northernmost reaches, while the central and southern parts remain ice free. Temperatures are generally lower in the north, so you might guess that the ice owes its existence purely to the higher latitude. But the reality is more complex: From north to south, the Caspian Sea also exhibits differences in salinity and depth. Read more
A dust storm blew out of Libya and across the Mediterranean Sea in late March 2013. Southwest of the coastal city of Banghazi (Benghazi), an especially thick dust plume spanned roughly 100 kilometers (60 miles), and the plume was thick enough to completely hide the ocean surface below. Read more
Russia’s Kamchatka Peninsula has the highest concentration of active volcanoes on Earth. Separated by only 180 kilometers (110 miles), Shiveluch, Bezymianny, Tolbachik, and Kizimen were all erupting simultaneously on January 11, 2013.
The activity of these four volcanoes was captured during a single orbit by the Advanced Spaceborne Thermal Emission and Reflection Radiometer on NASA’s Terra satellite. The four false-color (near infrared, red, and green) images above show Shiveluch, Bezymianny, Plotsky-Tolbachik, and Kizimen in detail. Read more
