Image from TERRA
Tue, 18 Apr 2023 16:24 EDT

The Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes, located in Katmai National Park, forms a unique and ashen landscape. Encircled by volcanoes – both active and inactive – it has served as a perfect collection area for huge amounts of volcanic ash.

Image from TERRA
Tue, 20 Sep 2022 10:30 EDT

Water departments in the West are using maps and models originally created by a NASA team to help track water.

Image from TERRA
Thu, 15 Sep 2022 10:00 EDT

NASA and Google broadened an existing partnership to help local governments improve their monitoring and prediction of air quality for better decision making.

2015 Wildfires in Alaska

alaska_amo_2015244Alaska is experiencing it’s second most severe fire season since 1950 with over 5.2 million acres burned (the average is 800,000 acres per year).

Terra and Aqua Moderate Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) are useful for scientists and land managers to be able to monitor and asses the environmental impact of remote forest fires.  This allows groups like the scientists from Universtity of California, Irvine, and Woods Hole Research Center to publish and analysis of carbon emissions for Alaska’s boreal forests. In addition land managing agencies are able to monitor fires unpopulated areas and allow them to burn, freeing up limited resources to be used in highly populated areas.

 

Read more on NASA’s Earth Observatory

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