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Composite image of an active Pacific and Atlantic storm season
Credits: EUMETSAT
Credits: EUMETSAT

Satellite Eye on Earth: August 2016 - in pictures

This article is more than 7 years old

Ocean storms, California fires and an ice-free North-west Passage were among the images captured by European Space Agency and Nasa satellites last month

Composite image of an active Pacific and Atlantic storm season on 30 August 2016, with three hurricanes, two tropical depressions and a former typhoon visible from the ring of geostationary satellites in orbit high above above the Earth.

Credit: ISS/NASA

The dunes of the Taklimakan desert form the shoreline of Bosten Lake in China’s far north-west. Bosten Lake holds fresh water and supplies fish for the local population. The lake covers about 1,000 square kilometres (390 square miles), making it one of the largest inland lakes in China. An outflow channel follows the dune margin, where it has been modernised as an engineered canal. A sediment core drilled from the lake bed has shown scientists how ephemeral this water supply is. Geologists now know that the lake has dried out 11 times in the past 8,500 years.

Credits: MODIS/Terra/NASA

Unsettled weather in mid-August 2016 brought rain and gusty winds to much of southern and western Australia while complex layers of clouds spread across parts of Queensland. August is mid-winter in Australia and the dry season in Queensland, typically with low humidity and little rainfall, especially inland. On 18 August, a high-pressure system in the Tasman Sea, off the south-eastern Australian coast, had extended a firm ridge along the east coast of Queensland. Also, a high pressure system sat over south-western Australia, while a surface trough moved into south-west Queensland. The clouds in this image appear to sit between the ridge (east) and trough (south-west) in an area of relatively quiet weather.

Credits: Planet Photograph: Planet

Cape Coral, Florida, US. Florida has more miles of canals than any other city on Earth. The master-planned community was founded in 1957 and sports the sprawling ranch-style homes and spacious yards indicative of mid-century American suburbia.

Credits:ISS/Nasa

Port of Aden, Yemen with its rugged, extinct volcano and large bay. Aden lies near the south end of the Red Sea, at a critical point where major sea lanes converge – between Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, the Persian Gulf and India, and the long shoreline of east Africa. To protect those sea lanes, Great Britain occupied Aden and the surrounding southern parts of the Arabian Peninsula from 1839 to 1967. The small enclave of Djibouti, on the opposite coast in Africa, was held by France for the same reason.

Credits: TIRS/Landsat 8/NASA

California’s Blue Cut wildfire has burned homes, caused power outages, and prompted more than 82,000 evacuations in San Bernardino county. The extent of the damage, however, remains unclear. The image above shows the Blue Cut fire at 10:36pm Pon 17 August, as observed by Thermal Infrared Sensor (TIRS) on the Landsat 8 satellite. TIRS observes in wavelengths of 10.9 micrometers and 12.0 micrometers, showing the amount of heat (thermal energy) radiating from the fiery landscape. Cooler areas are dark, while warmer areas are bright. The thermal data was overlaid on a daytime image for added geographic detail.

Ice melt in the North-west Passage
Credits: Modis/Aqua and VIIRS/Suomi NPP/Nasa

In August 2016, tourists on a luxury cruise departed Seward Alaska and steered toward the waterways of the Canadian Arctic archipelago. The excursion is one example of the growing human presence in an increasingly ice-free North-west Passage — the famed high-latitude sea route that connects the northern Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In mid-August 2016, the southern route through the passage was nearly ice-free.

For most of the year, the North-west Passage is frozen and impassible. But during the summer months, the ice melts and breaks up to varying degrees. The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on the Suomi NPP satellite captured the first image of the North-west Passage on 9 August 2016; the second image on 9 August, 2013, when ice was relatively extensive.

Credits: ASTER/Terra/NASA

Chuquicamata, in Chile’s Atacama Desert, is the largest open-pit copper mine in the world, by excavated volume. The copper deposits were first exploited in pre-Hispanic times. Open-pit mining began in the early 20th century when a method was developed to work low grade oxidised copper ores.

Credits: MODIS/Aqua/NASA

The Volga river stretches across much of Russia, rising in the Valday hills and winding about 2,300 miles (3,700km) before draining into the Caspian Sea. On 25 August, Nasa captured a stunning true-colour image of the river delta and the Caspian Sea. The rich greens of the vegetation stand out in bright contrast to the tans of the arid land nearby. Where the run-off from the Volga pours into the Caspian Sea, sediment – and possibly blooms of phytoplankton – colour the brackish water with a variety of tans, greens, and aqua.

Fires along Xingu river, Mato Grosso, Brazil
Credits: Planet

Nasa satellites spotted a fresh burn scar along the Xingu river in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil. Spreading fires created a thick pall of smoke on 2 August (then), and left a dark grey burn scar visible along the riverbank on 8 August (now).

Credits: OLI/Landsat 8/NASA


The images above show a segment of the barrier islands in the vicinity of the US’s first “national seashore park”, Cape Hatteras, on North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

These islands have been in flux long before the park was established, and they continue to change today. These images show a moment in time where various stages of island evolution – from build-up to erosion – are all visible.

Skinny parts of the island chain, which appear mostly white without any green vegetation, are “simple” barrier islands. These areas are generally eroding and thinning. The shoreline continues to recede and weak spots form, at which point water from the Atlantic Ocean can break through and form an inlet.

The green vegetated areas along the islands are usually wider and older “complex” barrier islands.

The islands in their natural state are resilient. But storms and coastal change can be hard on infrastructure and the roads that visitors use to access the park.

Credits: Planet

The Moskva river snakes through central Moscow, passing the Kremlin, Red Square, and Zaryadye Park (now under construction) along the way.

Credits: MODIS/Aqua/NASA

Large numbers of fires were burning in Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil on 23 August. The largest cluster of red hotspots, each marking an actively burning fire, was centred in Bolivia, where the government has declared a state of emergency. Wildfire season in the southern Amazon runs from roughly June to November, with peak activity usually occurring in September. The number and intensity of the fires varies strongly with climate anomalies such as El Niño and the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation. These cyclical changes in ocean temperatures affect global precipitation patterns and the likelihood of drought in South America. The strong El Niño in 2015–16 reduced rainfall across the Amazon during the wet season, meaning forecasters are anticipating an unusually intense fire season.

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