APOD: Aerosol Earth (2018 Sep 01)

[APOD Robot]

Aerosol Earth

Explanation: On August 23, 2018 the identification and distribution of aerosols in the Earth's atmosphere is shown in this dramatic, planet-wide visualization. Produced in real time, the Goddard Earth Observing System Forward Processing (GEOS FP) model relies on a combination of Earth-observing satellite and ground-based data to calculate the presence of types of aerosols, tiny solid particles and liquid droplets, as they circulate above the entire planet. This August 23rd model shows black carbon particles in red from combustion processes, like smoke from the fires in the United States and Canada, spreading across large stretches of North America and Africa. Sea salt aerosols are in blue, swirling above threatening typhoons near South Korea and Japan, and the hurricane looming near Hawaii. Dust shown in purple hues is blowing over African and Asian deserts. The location of cities and towns can be found from the concentrations of lights based on satellite image data of the Earth at night.

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[Boomer12k]

"Smoke gets in your eyes...."

:---[===] *

[starsurfer]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

[gmPhil]

Wondering what's the cause of all the "black carbon particles in red from combustion processes" in central Africa?

[Ann]

Wondering what's the cause of all the "black carbon particles in red from combustion processes" in central Africa?

Click to view full size image

Source: https://www.jamieoliver.com/news-and-fe ... e-cooking/

Cooking food over open fire, making a lot of smoke?

Ann

[neufer]

Wondering what's the cause of all the "black carbon particles in red from combustion processes" in central Africa?

Cooking food over open fire, making a lot of smoke?

<<Slash-and-burn agriculture, or fire–fallow cultivation, is a farming method that involves the cutting and burning of plants in a forest or woodland to create a field called a swidden. (Preparing fields by deforestation is called assarting.) In subsistence agriculture, slash-and-burn typically uses little technology. It is often applied in shifting cultivation agriculture (such as in the Amazon rainforest) and in transhumance livestock herding.

Sometimes there are several cycles of slash-and-burn within a few years' time span. For example, in eastern Madagascar, the following scenario occurs commonly. The first wave might be cutting of all trees for wood use. A few years later, saplings are harvested to make charcoal, and within the next year the plot is burned to create a quick flush of nutrients for grass to feed the family zebu cattle. If adjacent plots are treated in a similar fashion, large-scale erosion will usually ensue, since there are no roots or temporary water storage in nearby canopies to arrest the surface runoff. Thus, any small remaining amounts of nutrients are washed away. The area is an example of desertification, and no further growth of any type may arise for generations.>>

<<According to the UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), indigenous (also known as “old-growth”) forests in Africa are being cut down at a rate of more than 4 mn hectares per year — twice the world’s deforestation average. According to the FAO, losses totalled more than 10 per cent of the continent’s total forest cover between 1980 and 1995 alone. Saving Africa’s forests from the chainsaw and axe of encroaching humanity is essential to the health and productivity of much of the continent’s economy, experts point out. They cite the forests’ roles as watersheds, defences against soil erosion and regulators of local weather conditions.>>

[NCTom]

Viewing the wind patterns that carry these aerosols shows the eastern US being impacted by the western fires. When the Yellowstone super volcano goes, it will blast a big hole in the Rockies and cover the eastern half of the US in a major aerosol cloud. Goodby sunny days for a long time!

[neufer]

Click to play embedded YouTube video.

Viewing the wind patterns that carry these aerosols shows the eastern US being impacted by the western fires. When the Yellowstone super volcano goes, it will blast a big hole in the Rockies and cover the eastern half of the US in a major aerosol cloud.

Goodby sunny days for a long time!

[alcor]

What's cooking in the northern part of the Atlantic? Is it all the males who are starting to barberque after all the fires are gone in the northern Europe? With the smoke starting to collect out in the sea of the Atlantic?

[Ann]

What's cooking in the northern part of the Atlantic? Is it all the males who are starting to barberque after all the fires are gone in the northern Europe? With the smoke starting to collect out in the sea of the Atlantic?

Good question. It really looks as if all that red smoke over the Atlantic might be the smoky remnants of the huge forest fires that we have had in Europe, not least in Sweden, during this blisteringly hot summer.

Or maybe it all originated in California? Haven't you had forest fires there, too?

Ann

[Chris Peterson]

What's cooking in the northern part of the Atlantic? Is it all the males :D who are starting to barberque after all the fires are gone in the northern Europe? With the smoke starting to collect out in the sea of the Atlantic?

Good question. It really looks as if all that red smoke over the Atlantic might be the smoky remnants of the huge forest fires that we have had in Europe, not least in Sweden, during this blisteringly hot summer.

Or maybe it all originated in California? Haven't you had forest fires there, too?

Smoke from southern Sweden would mostly be carried east, over Asia. Smoke from northern Sweden would probably end up in westerly Arctic circulation. Given the latitude of the smoke over the Atlantic, I'd say its origin is North America (which has experienced huge fires over the entire west, not just California).

[bls0326]

A link to current wind currents around the world.

https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/w ... ,21.76,345

Brian

[neufer]

A link to current wind currents around the world.

https://earth.nullschool.net/#current/w ... ,21.76,345

Those are the surface winds. Smoke is more likely to follow 850 hPa or 500 hPa geopotential contours:

https://www.ecmwf.int/en/forecasts/char ... cal_global

https://www.ecmwf.int/en/forecasts/char ... cal_global

[ImjustaBill]

Why does if say September 9?

[RJN]

The numeric date has now been corrected on the main NASA APOD. We apologize for the oversight.
- RJN