September 10, 2022 - Smoke from West Coast Fires Over Greenland
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By September 8, 2022, smoke from many dozens of large wildfires burning
across the Western United States had travelled more than 2,800 miles
(4,506 km) to reach the western coast of Greenland. On that same day,
the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board
NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a true-color image of a gray blanket of
smoke lying over the Davis Strait and coastal Greenland, including the
towns of Nuuk and Paamiut. In the north, the hazy pall appears to be
mingling with the cloud layer, suggesting that the smoke stayed high
aloft. Air Quality reports for Nuuk and Paamiut registered in the
“Good” range on September 8, also indicative that the pollution stayed
aloft rather than nearing ground level.
A record-setting heat wave combined with drought set the stage for a
vicious fire season across the Western United States. In the first week
of September, Sacramento, California reached a record high temperature
for that city of 116˚F (46.7˚C) while Death Valley, California’s 127˚F
(47.2˚C) set a new high temperature for September recorded anywhere on
Earth. At the same time, the number and size of wildfires are growing.
The National Interagency Fire Center’s (NIFC) report on September 9
identified 96 large fires burning in 8 states: 37 in Idaho, 22 in
Montana, 12 in Oregon, 12 in Washington, 10 in California, and 1 each
in Utah, Wyoming, and Nevada. This is a large uptick from a week
prior—even from a day earlier. The NIFC stated that twenty-five new
fires had ignited over the last 24 hour period. The 96 large fires had
charred 690,030 acres, with more than 17,000 wildland firefighters and
personnel actively working the incidents.
Red-flag warnings for extreme fire conditions continue across parts of
Washington, Oregon, and California.
Image Facts
Satellite: Terra
Date Acquired: 9/8/2022
Resolutions: 1km (1.3 MB), 500m (3.7 MB), 250m (2.5 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=2022-09-10
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