December 27, 2020 - Continued Smoke in India

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   Continued Smoke in India
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   Heavy haze shrouded much of India on December 19, 2020, when the
   Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on board NASA’s
   Aqua satellite acquired this true-color image of the region. A long
   river of gray smoke and haze stretched more than 2,400 miles (2,253 km)
   across the Indo-Gangetic Plain from northern Pakistan nearly to Myanmar
   (Burma). For more than half of this length, the haze is so thick that
   it completely obscures the view of the land beneath. A large bank of
   low cloud (fog) sits at the feet of the Himalayas over Utter Pradesh.

   While industrial pollution and dust can contribute to the haze, much of
   the haze begins from crop-burning. Traditionally, crop burning is most
   intense during the post-monsoon season in Haryana and Punjab, where
   rice and wheat are widely grown. Burning typically peaks here during
   November to December, a time when many farmers set fire to leftover
   rice stalks and straw after harvest, a practice known as stubble or
   paddy burning. Close to 80 percent of India’s stubble burning takes
   place in these two states during late fall and early winter, which
   often coincides with falling temperatures and slow wind speeds,
   meteorological conditions that can lead to temperature inversions,
   which trap smoke in place. The skies over the Indo-Gangetic Plain have
   been haze-filled since October 5, even though the highest concentration
   of fires in the region have diminished.

   Image Facts
   Satellite:  Aqua
   Date Acquired: 12/19/2020
   Resolutions:  1km (571.4 KB),  500m (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=2020-12-27
 
