|
|
Fires in Central Africa
People in Africa have used f
…
7/9/09
| Description |
People in Africa have used fire for hundreds, possibly thousands, of years as an agricultural and land management tool. In the dry season, they set fires to clear brush and dead vegetation from farm and grazing land and to deal with household trash. As the rainy season migrates north and south across the continent each year, a wave of widespread fires precedes its arrival. This image from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite from July 8, 2009, shows thick smoke from hundreds of fires (locations marked in red) burning in central Africa, from Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) in the western part of the scene to Tanzania in the east. The tan and dull green landscape of southern DRC, Zambia, and Tanzania is savanna or grassland, while the deep green landscape of interior DRC (upper left) is tropical forest. Many of the fires have only small smoke plumes, and some appear to be making no smoke. The amount of smoke a fire generates is influenced by many factors, including the amount (biomass) of vegetation that is burning and how wet it is. Dry grass and brush would generate less smoke than trees. The large amount of smoke coming from the fires in DRC at upper left may be a sign that forest is burning. NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team. Caption by Rebecca Lindsey. |
| Date |
7/9/09 |
|
Fires in Kasai Region, Democ
…
Widespread agricultural burn
…
7/24/09
| Description |
Widespread agricultural burning is common in the dry season in Africa. As the rainy season migrates north and south across the continent each year, a wave of widespread fires precedes its arrival. This image of the Kasai region of Democratic Republic of the Congo shows hundreds of active fires (marked in red) burning on July 20, 2009. The tan and light green landscapes are likely a mixture of agricultural land, grassland, and savanna, while the deep green areas between the Sankuru and Kasai Rivers are tropical forest. Although many of the fires that occur each year during Africa's dry season occur in landscapes where people have been living and farming for generations, the growing population is also using fire to clear new agricultural land out of Africa's tropical forests. Many of the fires in the image have only small smoke plumes, and some appear to be making no smoke. Dry grass or crop residue would generate less smoke than live or recently cut trees. The large amount of smoke coming from the fires along the margins of the forests, however, may indicate that forest is being cleared. The large version of the image shows fires are burning across a wider area, including parts of Angola (southwest), Zambia (southeast), and Tanzania (east). The image was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite. Image credit: Jeff Schmaltz, NASA's MODIS Rapid Response Team Text credit: Rebecca Lindsey, NASA's Earth Observatory |
| Date |
7/24/09 |
|
Drought in Africa
| Title |
Drought in Africa |
| Description |
February is a key month for developing crops in southern Africa. Corn, the major crop, is in its critical tassel/silking stage where the plants require more water to successfully develop ears of corn. A lack of moisture at this point results in fewer, smaller ears, greatly reducing the yield of the crop. Just as the plants reached this critical stage, a dry spell settled over southern Africa. The reduced harvest may lead to food insecurity in parts of Malawi, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Mozambique, and Swaziland, reports a recent brief released by the Famine Early Warming Systems Network [ http://www.fews.net/centers/innerSections.aspx?f=r3&m=1001535&pageID=monthliesDoc ]. The drought has not been limited to southern Africa. Further up the coast, many countries are dealing with a multi-year drought that has caused food shortages from Tanzania in the south to Ethiopia and Eritrea in the north. Both drought-affected regions are draped in shades of red in the above image. The image shows outgoing longwave radiation, the heat emitted from the Earth?s surface. Because clouds are much cooler than land, outgoing longwave radiation can tell scientists where clouds are or, more importantly for drought monitoring, where clouds are not. Without clouds, there is no rain. The above image shows a comparison between February 2005 and a long-term average of outgoing longwave radiation measurements made between 1979 and 1995. Regions that were cooler than normal, probably because of cloud cover are blue, while areas that were normal than normal because of a lack of clouds are red. The image, derived from measurements made by the TIROS Operational Vertical Sounder (TOVS) onboard the NOAA-POES satellite series, clearly shows a lack of cloud-cover in the drought-affected regions. OLR anomaly image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data analyzed by Assaf Anyamba and provided by NOAA National Center for Environmental Prediction [ http://www.ncep.noaa.gov/ ]. |
|
Fire Season in Central and S
…
| Title |
Fire Season in Central and Southern Africa |
| Description |
In southern Africa, the annual burning season dotted the savannas surrounding Lake Tanganyika with hundreds of actively burning fires (marked in red) on June 11, 2005. This image from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite shows fires in Democratic Republic of Congo (west of the lake), Tanzania (east of the lake), and northern Zambia (south of the lake). The widespread nature of the fires and the time of year suggest that people are intentionally setting most, if not all, of these fires for agricultural purposes like pasture renewal and crop stubble clearing. Though not necessarily immediately hazardous, such large-scale burning can have a strong impact on weather, climate, human health, and natural resources. NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data obtained from the MODIS Rapid Response team. |
|
Fires Across Tanzania
| Title |
Fires Across Tanzania |
| Description |
Numerous fires (marked with red dots) were burning across eastern Africa on June 10, 2003. The fires appear most heavily concentrated east of Lake Tanganyika (left edge), but are also scattered across Zambia (bottom left) and Mozambique (bottom right). The fires are part of the typical agricultural burning that occurs in the region, where people set fires to clear land and prepare it for planting and ranching. This Aqua MODIS image was acquired on June 10, 2003. Image courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA-GSFC |
|
Fires in Central Africa
| Title |
Fires in Central Africa |
| Description |
In central Africa the annual fire season was underway in mid-June 2007, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) [ http://modis.gsfc.nasa.gov ] on NASA's Aqua [ http://aqua.nasa.gov ] satellite passed overhead and captured this image. Hundreds of agricultural fires were scattered across the savannas of Angola, Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, and Tanzania, their locations are marked with red dots. Although it is not necessarily immediately hazardous, such large-scale burning can have a strong impact on weather, climate, human health, and natural resources. NASA image created by Jesse Allen, using data provided courtesy of the MODIS Rapid Response [ http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/ ] team. |
|
Fires in Central and Souther
…
| Title |
Fires in Central and Southern Africa |
| Description |
Even for a region that sees a lot fires during the agricultural season, this scene seems to reveal an exceptional number of fires for countries from east-central to southern Africa. This true-color image was acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua satellite on September 25, 2002. Hundreds of fire detections are indicated by red dots. In the top center of the image is Lake Malawi, which is bounded on the west by Malawi, on the northeast by Tanzania, and on the southeast by Mozambique. Other countries visible in the image are (north-south along left edge) Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Zimbabwe, Botswana, Republic of South Africa, and Swaziland (bottom center). Agricultural fires have been part of the ecological cycles in Africa for perhaps thousands of years, used to clear land and regenerate pasture. Scientists are studying these cycles to assess their impact on air quality, global warming, and ecosystem change. Image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Land Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC |
|
Fires in Southeastern Africa
| Title |
Fires in Southeastern Africa |
| Description |
The southern Africa biomass burning season is in full swing across (clockwise from top left) Democratic Republic of Congo, Zambia, Tanzania, Mozambique, Zimbabwe, and Malawi (center). Fires, marked with red dots, are an integral part of the farming and grazing practices in the region. This image was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua satellite on August 18, 2003. The high-resolution image provided above is 500 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides this image at MODIS' maximum spatial resolution of 250 meters. Image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC |
|
Fires in Southern Africa
| Title |
Fires in Southern Africa |
| Description |
West of Lake Tanganyika in east-central Africa, smoke chokes the air over Democratic Republic of Congo, where the annual fire season has been ongoing for several weeks. Fires are also burning to the east of Tanganyika in Tanzania, and to the southwest, in Zambia. This image of the haze and fires (orange dots) was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua satellite on May 16, 2004. Image by Earth Observatory staff, based on data from the MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA-GSFC |
|
Fires in Southern Africa
| Title |
Fires in Southern Africa |
| Description |
West of Lake Tanganyika in east-central Africa, scores of fires (orange dots) were choking the skies over Democratic Republic of Congo with smoke on May 23, 2004. To the east of the lake, fires are burning in Tanzania, as well, though the air is considerably less smoky there. Fires were also detected in Zambia, which sits at the bottom right portion of the image, south of the lake. The widespread nature of the fires and the time of year indicates that these fires are being set intentionally for agricultural purposes. Though not necessarily immediately hazardous, such large-scale burning—and the resulting smoke—can have a strong impact on weather, climate, human health, and natural resources. This image was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on the Aqua satellite. Image by Jesse Allen, based on data from the MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA-GSFC |
|
Fires in Southern Africa
| Title |
Fires in Southern Africa |
| Description |
In south-central Africa, season agricultural burning has been a way of life for hundreds, probably thousands of years. People burn grasslands and savannas to encourage new vegetation that attracts grazing animals and to clear or renew land for farming. Though not necessarily hazardous, such large-scale burning can have a strong impact on weather, climate, human health, and natural resources. This image shows fires (marked in yellow) across southern Africa on August 17, 2004. At image right is Lake Tanganyika, which sits at the borders of Tanzania to the east, Democratic Republic of Congo to the west, Zambia to the south, and Burundi to the north. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA's Aqua satellite captured this image. Image by Jesse Allen, based on data from the MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA-GSFC |
|
Fires in Central Africa: Ima
…
nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
…
Each year, thousands of fire
…
cafrica_amo_31may05
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2005-05-31 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data obtained courtesy of the rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/ MODIS Rapid Response team. |
| identifier |
cafrica_amo_31may05 |
|
Fires in Central Africa: Nat
…
nasa, nasanaturalhazards
In central Africa the annual
…
cafrica_amo_2007164
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2007-06-13 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA Image Of The Day |
| identifier |
cafrica_amo_2007164 |
|
Fires in East Central Africa
…
nasa, nasanaturalhazards
Thousands of fires burn acro
…
Congo.AMOA2003189
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
July 8, 2003 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA Image Of The Day |
| identifier |
Congo.AMOA2003189 |
|
Fire Season in Central and S
…
nasa, nasanaturalhazards
In southern Africa, the annu
…
tanganyika_amo_11jun05
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2005-06-11 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA Image Of The Day |
| identifier |
tanganyika_amo_11jun05 |
|
Fire Season in Central and S
…
nasa, nasanaturalhazards
In southern Africa, the annu
…
tanganyika_amo_11jun05
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2005-06-11 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA Image Of The Day |
| identifier |
tanganyika_amo_11jun05 |
|
Fires in Central and Souther
…
nasa, nasanaturalhazards
Even for a region that sees
…
Mozambique.AMO2002268
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2002-09-25 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA Image Of The Day |
| identifier |
Mozambique.AMO2002268 |
|
Fires in Tanzania and Mozamb
…
nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
…
Like many countries, the sou
…
Mozambique_fire_2001312
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2001-11-08 |
| creator |
NASA -- Image courtesy Jacques Descloitres, modis-land.gsfc.nasa.gov/ MODIS Land Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC |
| identifier |
Mozambique_fire_2001312 |
|
Fires Across Tanzania: Natur
…
nasa, nasanaturalhazards
Numerous fires (marked with
…
EastAfrica.AMOA2003161
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2003-06-10 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA Image Of The Day |
| identifier |
EastAfrica.AMOA2003161 |
|
Fires in Southeastern Africa
…
nasa, nasanaturalhazards
The southern Africa biomass
…
Mozambique.AMOA2003230
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2003-08-18 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA Image Of The Day |
| identifier |
Mozambique.AMOA2003230 |
|
Fires in Southern Africa: Na
…
nasa, nasanaturalhazards
West of Lake Tanganyika in e
…
aqua_cafrica_16may04
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2004-05-16 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA Image Of The Day |
| identifier |
aqua_cafrica_16may04 |
|
Drought Brings Food Shortage
…
nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
…
As many as ten drought-stric
…
safrica_ndvi_200401
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2004 |
| creator |
NASA -- Image based on data provided by Matthew C. Hansen, University of Maryland |
| identifier |
safrica_ndvi_200401 |
|
Fires in Eastern Central Afr
…
nasa, nasaimageofthedaygalle
…
West of Lake Tanganyika in e
…
aqua_cafrica_23may04
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2004-05-23 |
| creator |
NASA -- Image by Jesse Allen, based on data from the rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA-GSFC |
| identifier |
aqua_cafrica_23may04 |
|
Fires in Southern Africa: Na
…
nasa, nasanaturalhazards
In south-central Africa, sea
…
aqua_safrica_18aug04
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2004-08-17 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA Image Of The Day |
| identifier |
aqua_safrica_18aug04 |
|
Drought in Africa: Natural H
…
nasa, nasanaturalhazards
February is a key month for
…
africa_olra_tcer_feb2005
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2005-03-01 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA Image Of The Day |
| identifier |
africa_olra_tcer_feb2005 |
|
Drought in Africa: Natural H
…
nasa, nasanaturalhazards
February is a key month for
…
africa_olra_tcer_feb2005
| mediatype |
IMAGE |
| mediatype |
image |
| date |
2005-03-01 |
| creator |
NASA -- NASA Image Of The Day |
| identifier |
africa_olra_tcer_feb2005 |
|
|
