November 3, 2020 - Smoke and Haze across India

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   Fires in India and N. Pakistan
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   On November 2, 2020, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
   (MODIS) on board NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired a true-color image of a
   river of smoke and haze pouring across northern India at the foot of
   the Himalayas and curving to the south and west to cover Mumbai, a
   large city on the western coast.

   At the top of the image, a dense cloud of light gray marks plumes of
   smoke rising from numerous fires burning in the rich agricultural land
   of north-western India and north-eastern Pakistan. This area is a
   fertile alluvial plain which supports widespread farming as its
   economic base. In the autumn, as crops are harvested and the remaining
   vegetation dries, traditional farming practice turns to fire to clear
   the stubble and prepare fields for future planting. While
   stubble-burning has been banned in much of India – primarily because of
   the impact on air quality - many farmers still use the practice. As
   stubble-burning increases each fall, smoke frequently travels along the
   Himalayas and spreads hundreds, or sometimes thousands, of miles.

   While it may seem logical to blame the fires for the haze that hangs
   across much of India, agricultural smoke is just one contributor to the
   country’s air quality woes. Other sources of the haze include India’s
   cities, industry, and automobiles. The haze is particularly thick over
   Mumbai, on the western coast, as well as Delhi, which is located east
   of the area of the rising smoke plumes.

   The amount of haze and the primary location along the base of the
   mountains suggests that a temperature inversion also plays a role in
   the gray skies. It is common to see dense haze in northern India,
   Nepal, and Bangladesh in the winter, when cool air comes to the region.
   In normal conditions, air near the ground is warmer than the air above
   the ground. Warm air rises, and as it does so it carries the pollution
   upward where it eventually disperses when mixed with cooler air high
   above the ground. When cold temperatures come to the Himalayas, frigid
   air pours down the mountains and onto the plains. This makes the air
   near the ground colder than the layer of air above. The warm layer
   creates a lid over the cold air, which cannot rise through the warmth.
   Any smoke or other pollution captured in the cold air remain trapped as
   well, with no way to disperse. Extensive haze has been lingering over
   much of India, especially at the base of the Himalayas, since October
   11.

   Image Facts
   Satellite:  Aqua
   Date Acquired: 11/2/2020
   Resolutions:  1km (313.1 KB),  500m (1.1 MB),  250m (3.8 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=2020-11-03
 
