December 26, 2021 - Fires and Smoke in India

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A river of thick gray haze hung over the Indo-Gangetic Plain along the
southern edge of the Himalaya Mountains in late December 2021. The
Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s
Aqua satellite acquired this true-color image on December 23. The band
of gray stretches across northern India and bends southward both in the
west and east to hang over the Bay of Bengal (east) and the Arabian Sea
(west).

Haze is a common occurrence over India, especially when farmers use
fire to clear fields of stubble at the end of the growing season. While
the majority of agricultural fires burn through the end of November,
some fires continue into December and are probably part of the source
of this gray haze. Urban and industrial pollution also contribute to
haze through much of the year, and this tends to increase in winter as
fuels are increasingly used for heating. Winter also is the time when
temperature inversions frequently occur, creating conditions for heavy
haze formation. This happens when cool air near the ground becomes
capped by a layer of warm air above. The warm air acts like a lid,
preventing cool air from rising. Any particulate matter that sits
within the cooler layer stays trapped near the ground, allowing for
increasing haze the longer the inversion is present.

Image Facts
Satellite: Terra
Date Acquired: 12/23/2021
Resolutions: 1km (470 KB), 500m (1.6 MB), 250m (5.6 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=2021-12-26

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