Thick haze blurs the North China Plain, right, and snakes through the valley the Yellow River cuts through the Luliang Shan Mountains, left. In the north, the haze seems to dissipate near China’s capital, Beijing, west of the Bo Hai, the bay off the Yellow Sea. In this Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) image captured on April 5, 2004, by the Aqua satellite, the haze clings near the ground, letting the peaks of the mountains peek through, while white clouds hover above. Such haze is common in Eastern China, particularly during the winter when people burn coal and wood for heat.
The high-resolution image provided above is at MODIS’ maximum resolution of 250 meters per pixel.
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Image courtesy Jesse Allen, based on data from the MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC
