Smoke over the Bering Sea

Smoke from Far Eastern Russia’s spring wildfires reached the Bering Sea by May 11, 2012. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer aboard NASA’s Terra satellite passed over the region at 23:30 UTC on that same day and acquired this true-color image of a broad band of smoke stretching across the blue waters.

In this image, the plume of smoke appears light gray while banks of cloud are bright white. Snow covers much of Kamchatka the land mass in the west. Karaginsky Island, just off Kamchatka’s eastern shore, is surrounded by sea ice. Clouds stream off the southwest shores of Beringa and Medny Islands. To the east, Attu Station, Alaska, is surrounded by cloud.

In early May, numerous wildfires burned near Lake Baikal, in Siberia. These fires billowed heavy smoke across eastern Mongolia, China and Russia’s Far East. An image of the smoke and fires was captured on May 8 and appeared as the MODIS image of the day on May 11. That image can be viewed here: modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2012-0....

According to a model by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), it is possible that smoke from the Lake Baikal region could take just a few days to reach the Bering Sea.

Credit: NASA/GSFC/Jeff Schmaltz/MODIS Land Rapid Response Team

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