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Northwest Passage Open
| Title |
Northwest Passage Open |
| Description |
Although nearly open, the Northwest Passage was not necessarily easy to navigate in August 2007. Located 800 kilometers (500 miles) north of the Arctic Circle and less than 1,930 kilometers (1,200 miles) from the North Pole, this sea route poses significant challenges, and the severe depletion of sea ice means only one of these is reduced. Nevertheless, long-term opening of the passage would have global impacts on trade and natural resource use. You can download a 250-meter-resolution KMZ file of the Northwest Passage [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/Archive/Aug2007/nwpassage_amo_2007241.kmz ] suitable for use with Google Earth. [ http://earth.google.com/ ] NASA image created by Jesse Allen, using data obtained from the Goddard Land Processes data archives (LAADS). [ http://laads.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ] Thanks to Walt Meier, NSIDC, U.S. National Ice Center, and John Falkingham, Environment Canada - Canadian Ice Service for image interpretation., For over 500 years, Arctic explorers have sought a passage between the North Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Such a passage, often called the Northwest Passage, would connect Europe to Asia via shorter routes than the long voyage south around Africa. In 1497, English King Henry VII sent Italian explorer John Cabot to look for this hypothetical route and expeditions from some of the most famous explorers in the centuries that followedSir Francis Drake and Captain James Cook among themmet with failure. The combined efforts of a number of explorers eventually uncovered a winding path from the Atlantic to the Arctic and Pacific Oceans through the ice-bound islands of northern Canada. Even in modern times, navigating from the Atlantic to the Pacific through Canada's Arctic islands has been difficult. The summer of 2007, however, melted enough sea ice in Canada's far north to open up this long-sought passage. This image shows the islands north of mainland Canada adjacent to Greenland, as observed by the the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ] flying on NASA's Aqua [ http://aqua.nasa.gov/ ] satellite on August 29, 2007. While the usual veil of clouds over the Arctic is visible through the scene, the sea ice pack that normally covers the water between the islands is absent. Areas often choked with ice at this time of year, but free of it in this MODIS scene, include the Parry and McClintock Channels and the McClure Strait. Larsen Sound and Victoria Strait are hidden beneath cloud cover, but they are also largely free of sea ice. [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17752 ] This provided a nearly ice-free connection between Baffin Bay (a long body of water between Canada's Baffin Island and Greenland that is regularly ice-free in summer) and the Arctic Ocean. An ice-free gap between the North American mainland and the Arctic sea, not shown here, extends all the way to the Bering Strait between Alaska and Russia, creating a connection almost free of all sea ice from the North Atlantic to the North Pacific. Multi-year ice (ice that survives more than one melt season) tends to be thicker and more resistant to melt than first-year ice (formed over just one winter). According to John Falkingham of the Canadian Ice Service, most of the multi-year ice melted from Victoria Strait and McClintock Channel in the summer of 2006, leaving these traditionally difficult areas more open. In mid-August 2007, only patchy areas of ice filled Victoria Strait and Larsen Sound. Falkingham described the Northwest Passage as "nearly open." Changes in the Northwest Passage were part of a larger pattern of melt in 2007 that also affected the East Siberian Sea. [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Newsroom/NewImages/images.php3?img_id=17743 ] |
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Fires in South-Central Russi
…
| Title |
Fires in South-Central Russia |
| Description |
Separated by a ridge of mountains, the Ob and Yenisey Rivers of south-central Russia flow northward toward the Arctic Ocean. On April 24, 2007, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ] on NASA's Aqua [ http://aqua.nasa.gov ] satellite captured this image of scores of fires burning in the area around these two rivers. Snow still blankets the peaks of the Altay Mountains in the south, but the lowlands are free of snow. These fires are probably agricultural fires that people have set to prepare land for the upcoming growing season. The high-resolution image provided above has a spatial resolution of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response Team provides this image in a variety of resolutions. NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team, [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov ] Goddard Space Flight Center. |
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Flooding on the Ob River
| Title |
Flooding on the Ob River |
| Description |
As much a sign of spring as longer days, greening plants, and melting snow, the Ob River had spread across its floodplain in far northern Russia when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ]) on NASA's Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite captured the top image on June 20, 2007. The Ob River and its tributary, the Irtysh, together form one of the longest river systems in Asia, flowing from the Altay Mountains of northern China to the Arctic Ocean. The northern reaches of the Ob flow over a flat, permafrost plain. As spring creeps north, the snow that covered northern Russia gradually melts, and the runoff flows into the river. Swollen with spring runoff, the river flows north, where it meets ice jams on sections of the river that have not thawed. Since the river cannot cut deep channels into the frozen land, it flows out over the surrounding plain during the spring melt, creating the wide band of water seen in this image. The lower image shows the Ob River in the fall, immediately before winter secured the region in its frozen grip. The river was a fraction of the size it would be the following spring. Both images were made using a combination of visible and infrared light. Water is black and dark blue. Snow, light blue, dusts the ground south of the Gulf of Ob in the October image and covers the peaks of the Ural Mountains west of the river in the June image. Also in the June image, a smooth pane of ice, also light blue, covers the Gulf of Ob, providing the natural dam that created the floods shown here. Pale blue, frozen lakes dot the permafrost north of the river, and darker, ice-free lakes adorn the land to the south of the river. Plant-covered land is green, and clouds are light blue and white. You can download a 250-meter-resolution KMZ file of the mouth of the Ob River [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/Archive/Jun2007/ob_tmo_2007171.kmz ] suitable for use with Google Earth. [ http://earth.google.com/ ] NASA images created by Jesse Allen, using data provided courtesy of the MODIS Rapid Response [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ] team. |
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Flooding on the Ob River
| Title |
Flooding on the Ob River |
| Description |
As much a sign of spring as longer days, greening plants, and melting snow, the Ob River had spread across its floodplain in far northern Russia when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ]) on NASA's Terra [ http://terra.nasa.gov/ ] satellite captured the top image on June 20, 2007. The Ob River and its tributary, the Irtysh, together form one of the longest river systems in Asia, flowing from the Altay Mountains of northern China to the Arctic Ocean. The northern reaches of the Ob flow over a flat, permafrost plain. As spring creeps north, the snow that covered northern Russia gradually melts, and the runoff flows into the river. Swollen with spring runoff, the river flows north, where it meets ice jams on sections of the river that have not thawed. Since the river cannot cut deep channels into the frozen land, it flows out over the surrounding plain during the spring melt, creating the wide band of water seen in this image. The lower image shows the Ob River in the fall, immediately before winter secured the region in its frozen grip. The river was a fraction of the size it would be the following spring. Both images were made using a combination of visible and infrared light. Water is black and dark blue. Snow, light blue, dusts the ground south of the Gulf of Ob in the October image and covers the peaks of the Ural Mountains west of the river in the June image. Also in the June image, a smooth pane of ice, also light blue, covers the Gulf of Ob, providing the natural dam that created the floods shown here. Pale blue, frozen lakes dot the permafrost north of the river, and darker, ice-free lakes adorn the land to the south of the river. Plant-covered land is green, and clouds are light blue and white. You can download a 250-meter-resolution KMZ file of the mouth of the Ob River [ http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/NaturalHazards/Archive/Jun2007/ob_tmo_2007171.kmz ] suitable for use with Google Earth. [ http://earth.google.com/ ] NASA images created by Jesse Allen, using data provided courtesy of the MODIS Rapid Response [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ] team. |
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Sea Ice Extent in the Arctic
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nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
…
After earthobservatory.nasa.
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npseaice_amsre_2007318
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2007-11-14 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA Image Of The Day |
| identifier |
npseaice_amsre_2007318 |
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Record Arctic Sea Ice Loss i
…
nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
…
Accessed September 26, 2007.
…
arctic_ams_2007259
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2007-09-16 |
| creator |
NASA -- Arctic image courtesy svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/ NASA Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio, based on data from AMSR-E. Graph courtesy Walt Meier, nsidc.org National Snow and Ice Data Center. |
| identifier |
arctic_ams_2007259 |
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Fire on Alaska's North Slope
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nasa, nasanaturalhazards
On July 16, 2007, lightning
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ge_19139
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2007-09-25 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA Image Of The Day |
| identifier |
ge_19139 |
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Fire on Alaska's North Slope
…
nasa, nasanaturalhazards
On July 16, 2007, lightning
…
ge_19139
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2007-09-25 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA Image Of The Day |
| identifier |
ge_19139 |
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Flooding on the Ob River: Na
…
nasa, nasanaturalhazards
* eoimages.gsfc.nasa.gov/ima
…
ob_tmo_2007171
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2007-06-20 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA Image Of The Day |
| identifier |
ob_tmo_2007171 |
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Fires in South-Central Russi
…
nasa, nasanaturalhazards
Separated by a ridge of moun
…
Russia_AMO_2007113
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2007-04-23 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA Image Of The Day |
| identifier |
Russia_AMO_2007113 |
|
Northwest Passage Open: Natu
…
nasa, nasanaturalhazards
For over 500 years, Arctic e
…
nwpassage_amo_2007241
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2007-08-29 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA Image Of The Day |
| identifier |
nwpassage_amo_2007241 |
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