December 6, 2020 - Continued Fires and Smoke in India

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   Continued Fires and Smoke in India
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   Hazy skies continued to cover much of India in early December 2020. For
   several months, farmers in the richest agricultural areas – primarily
   Punjab in Haryana, where rice and wheat are widely grown – have used
   fire to clean stubble from their fields and to prepare for new
   plantings. This traditional agricultural method is effective on the
   ground, but the widespread use of fire creates heavy smoke in the
   region. The winds often spread a river of smoke across the
   Indo-Gangetic Plain and add to pollution across much of India.

   On December 4, 2020, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer
   (MODIS) on board NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a true-color image of
   smoke and haze stretching across the feet of the Himalaya Mountains and
   wrapping around the eastern coast of India. In many areas, especially
   in the northeast, the haze and smoke are so thick that it obscures the
   land from view.

   India’s air pollution problems are complex and multi-factorial.
   Industrial pollution, dust, and automobile exhaust all are important
   sources of pollution. In the fall, agricultural fires are the primary
   source of haze. Burning typically peaks during the first week of
   November, a time when many farmers set fire to leftover rice stalks and
   straw after harvest, a practice known as stubble or paddy burning. The
   burning often coincides with falling temperatures and slow wind speeds,
   meteorological conditions that can lead to temperature inversions,
   which trap smoke in place.

   Image Facts
   Satellite:  Terra
   Date Acquired: 12/4/2020
   Resolutions:  1km (161 KB),  500m (580 KB),  250m (2.1 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=2020-12-06
 
