August 31, 2020 - Sea Ice off East Coast of Greenland

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   Sea Ice off East Coast of Greenland
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   On August 26, 2020, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
   (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a stunning false color
   image highlighting a late-summer’s day in Eastern Greenland. This type
   of false-color image, which combines infrared and visible light bands
   (7,2,1), is especially helpful to sort out cloud from ice. In this
   combination, clouds appear white while ice and snow appears electric
   blue. Vegetation appears bright green, open land appears tan, and deep
   water appears dark inky blue.

   Filigrees of drifting sea ice float along the eastern coast of
   Greenland, free from the shore and curled at the edges by the
   prevailing currents. Inland, a layer of blue marks Greenland’s ice
   sheet. Summer’s warmth has melted snow, revealing a rocky landscape
   edged with green vegetation. Puffs of white cloud hang over the ice
   sheet in the north of the image.

   Arctic sea ice generally reaches its maximum extent each March and its
   minimum extent each September. This ice has historically ranged from
   roughly 14-16 million square kilometers (about 5.4-6.2 million square
   miles) in late winter to roughly 7 million square kilometers (about 2.7
   million square miles) each September. In recent years, however, those
   numbers have been much lower. According to the National Snow and Ice
   Data Center, on August 17, sea ice extent stood at 5.15 million square
   kilometers (1.99 million square miles). This on essentially ties with
   2007 for the third-lowest extent for the date since the satellite
   record began in 1979. The August 17 extent was lower only in 2012 and
   2019.

   Image Facts
   Satellite:  Terra
   Date Acquired: 8/26/2020
   Resolutions:  1km (171 KB),  500m (430 KB),  250m (803.9 KB)
   Bands Used: 1,4,3
   Image Credit: MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC



https://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/individual.php?db_date=2020-08-31
 
