Set against the sapphire blue waters of the Pacific Ocean and Gulfof Mexico, central Mexico boasts a dazzling array of colors andlandscapes, from verdant green tropical forests to black mountains tocaramel-colored, high-altitude deserts. The Sierra Madre OccidentalMountains march down the western portion of Mexico, while the SierraMadre Oriental Mountains march down in the east. Mexico City, thecountry's capital, sits in a small valley to the right of the imagecenter, and is very near three small fires, marked in red. To theleft of Mexico City is the city of Toluca, which appears as a small,dark gray smudge. Far to the west, north of the Laguna de Chapala(left of center), is the city of Guadalajara, which appears grayishbrown against the southern reaches of the darker, brown-black SierraMorone Mountains.
MODIS detected a number of fires scattered through a few Mexicanstates, mostly in Guanajuato and Michoacan (slightly left of center).Air pollution, both from fires and anthropogenic sources, is alsoquite visibly casting gray-blue palls over portions of the country.It is especially noticeable along the image’s northeastern coast,where it obscures much of the land beneath and almost completelyhides the Laguna de Tamiahua on the bit of land jutting eastward intothe Gulf of Mexico. Rather than spreading over the whole country,the pollution in the northeast is contained by the Sierra MadreOriental Mountains and is blown out over the Gulf. This true-colorTerra MODIS image was acquired December 4th, 2002.
References & Resources
Image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
