Thick haze hung over central China on May 29, 2007, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite passed overhead and captured this image. The haze was so thick that little of the landscape below is visible. The forested Dabie Mountains, an important source of bamboo in the country, stand out from the gray haze and the olive-colored plains to the north. Places where MODIS detected actively burning fires, probably agricultural fires, are marked in red. Smoke from the fires is the most likely culprit for the widespread haze; however, several large cities occupy the region as well. Urban pollution from cities such as Nanjing (more than 6 million residents) and Wuxi (more than 1 million residents) may also be a factor in the poor air quality.
The large image provided above has a spatial resolution (level of detail) of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response Team provides twice-daily images of the region in additional resolutions and formats.
References & Resources
NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team, Goddard Space Flight Center
