Moscow had 65 cm of snow on the ground on 1 April 2013. (That’s roughly 26 inches for any American readers.) That’s the most snow they’ve ever had on the ground that late in the spring, and it was all thanks to record snowfall during the month of March. This article from 26 March 2013 says they got 70 cm (28 inches) in a two day period, and forecasters were predicting another 8-10 cm by the end of the month.

What happens when record amounts of snow melt? It causes flooding. In this case, flooding that makes the Illinois River look like a creek you can hop across. The watershed of the Volga River has been hit especially hard. Here’s a picture that our resident Russian, Galina C., tells me is from near the city of Ryazan, so I assume it is the Oka River. (Refer back to the Volga River map I linked to.) There are more pictures here.

To bring this all together with VIIRS, here is what VIIRS saw on 28 March 2012, right after the region got 70 cm of snow:

False color RGB composite of VIIRS channels I-01, I-02 and I-03, taken 10:38 UTC 28 March 2013

Again, to see the full resolution image, click on it and then click on the “1793×2036 ” link below the banner. This is the false color combination that EUMETSAT refers to as “Natural Color“, where snow and ice appear cyan and liquid clouds appear white. The whole scene is snow, except for a few small clouds north of Moscow and anywhere there are trees sticking out above the snow, which appear green.

Notice that you can’t see any rivers. They’re all frozen over and covered with snow.

Here’s what VIIRS saw (same false color combination) a month later (29 April 2013):

False color composite of VIIRS channels I-01, I-02 and I-03, taken 10:39 UTC 29 April 2013

All the snow is gone. Plus, look at all the rivers you can see. The problem is that you shouldn’t normally be able to see all of these rivers. The flooding makes them visible.

What I think is more impressive is seeing a time-lapse loop of VIIRS images over this period:

Animation of false color composites of VIIRS channels I-01, I-02 and I-03 from 28 March 2013 to 2 May 2013.

Make sure you look at it in full resolution mode. Note that the time period between frames in the animation varies. Some days it was too cloudy to see anything, one or two days had missing data, etc., so this isn’t always one image per day.

The city of Ryazan is identified in the animation (remember the photo linked to earlier). To put it into perspective, check out the Google Maps satellite view of the city. The Oka River is normally ~200 m wide near the city. In the last two frames of the animation, the Oka River is over 10 km wide at its widest point near Ryazan! The same goes for a lot of the rivers visible at the end of the loop – rivers that are normally a few tens or hundreds of meters wide are up to a few kilometers wide.

The city of Tambov at 52°43′N, 41°26′E, which is outside of the domain of the animation, but in the southeastern portion of the larger static images, experienced its worst flooding in 130 years in early April. (That corner of the domain was the first to experience snowmelt.) One of the contributing factors at Tambov, according to that article, was that the ground below the snow was still frozen. The snowmelt occurred before the ground thawed. This meant that the meltwater couldn’t be absorbed into the ground – it simply collected in the low-lying areas or ran off into the rivers, which quickly filled as you can see.

Our resident Russian was also able to grab this plot of the Oka River stage at Novinky, just upstream of where the Oka empties into the Volga. The information comes from this website. This plot covers the time period from 7 April to 7 May 2013.

River stage of the Oka River at Novinky, Russia for April 2013. Data comes from gis.waterinfo.ru, with help from Galina Chirokova (CIRA).

The Oka River looks like it peaked at about 2.5 m above normal. (8 ft. for you Americans.)

All that water is going to end up in the Caspian Sea, whose water level is largely based on inflow from the Volga River’s watershed. Variations of sea level in the Caspian have been +/-3 m over the last century and, with this influx of snowmelt, it is sure to go up.

Now, we know VIIRS is good at detecting snow. But, flooding is a bit trickier, particularly river flooding. First, flooding usually occurs when it’s cloudy. (Not always, of course, since you can have flooding from snowmelt or heavy rains that occurred upstream or caused by ice jams when it isn’t cloudy. And, as we saw with Hurricane Isaac, flooding may linger long after the clouds are gone.) Second, flooding can have a huge impact over a small area that your satellite might not have the resolution to detect.

Well, I’m here to report that VIIRS has the resolution to detect the flooding that occurred over Illinois last week. And the flooding lasted until well after the clouds cleared. Take a look at the image below from 21 April 2013, where the flooding is visible:

VIIRS false color composite of channels I-01, I-02 and I-03, taken 18:13 UTC 21 April 2013

This is a “Natural Color” RGB composite of the high-resolution channels I-01 (0.64 µm, blue), I-02 (0.87 µm, green) and I-03 (1.61 µm, red). If you click on the image, then on the “3124×2152″ link below the banner, you will see the full resolution image. If you’re wondering where the flooding is, notice the rivers I have labelled in the image. Now try to spot those rivers in this image from two weeks earlier (5 April 2013):

VIIRS false color composite of channels I-01, I-02 and I-03, taken 18:13 UTC 5 April 2013.

Those rivers are a lot more difficult to see. The Illinois, Sangamon, and Mississippi rivers are the only rivers easily visible in the before image. A lot more show up after the heavy rains because they grew beyond their banks and became big enough for VIIRS to see. You might also notice that the vegetation has become much greener over this two week period. To make it easier to compare, here are those images cropped and centered on the swollen rivers, side-by-side:

False-color RGB composites of VIIRS channels I-01, I-02 and I-03, taken on 5 April 2013 (left) and 21 April 2013 (right)

There are a couple of important things to note about these images that are related to how VIIRS and its satellite (Suomi-NPP) work. One is that Suomi-NPP has an orbit with a 16-day repeat cycle. Every 16 days it should (if it’s in its proper orbit) pass over the same spot on the Earth at the same time of day. The images above were taken 16 days apart, and as you can see in the captions, were taken at the same time of day. The only difference in the area included in the images is the result of the start time of the data granules being 13 seconds off. This means that VIIRS is viewing all the same spots at the same viewing angles.

This leads to point #2: the VIIRS instrument has a constant angular resolution (recall that it uses a constantly rotating mirror to detect radiation across the swath) which, when projected onto the surface of the Earth, means that it does not have a constant spatial resolution. (See slide 12 of this presentation.) The spatial resolution of the high resolution channels shown here is ~375 m at nadir, and it degrades to ~750 m resolution at the edge of the swath. In the images above, the center of the VIIRS swath (nadir) is near the right edge of the data plotted. The left edge of the data plotted is about 80% of the distance from nadir to the edge of the swath. The loss in resolution over this distance may be enough to prevent VIIRS from detecting all the flooding that is occurring. But, the important thing is that we are viewing all these rivers at the same angles and the same resolution. This gives the best comparison between the before and after images.

A few more things to notice in the above images: there is snow in the northern part of Michigan’s Lower Peninsula, with ice on Green Bay and Lake Winnebago (all of which are easier to see in the image from 5 April 2013). Does anyone living there still remember last year’s record heat wave?  Many places in this region had already had a number of +80 and +90 °F days, but it seems like a distant memory now. This year, winter doesn’t want to end.

One last thing for today: If you focus on Michigan again you might notice another area of flooding. This one is large enough it wouldn’t be impacted by any resolution degradation (even though it is near the center of the swath where you wouldn’t be worried about that anyway). I’ve zoomed in on the area here:

False-color composites of VIIRS channels I-01, I-02 and I-03 from 5 April 2013 (left) and 21 April 2013 (right)

This is along the Shiawassee River near the Shiawassee National Wildlife Refuge, a few miles southwest of Saginaw. This area of flooding is confirmed by these aerial photographs taken on 22 April 2013.

A group of volcanic islands southeast of Australia, New Zealand is known for the Southern Alps, the locations where they filmed the Lord of the Rings trilogy and rugby, although I’m sure there’s more to the country than that. Residents of New Zealand refer to themselves as “kiwis”, although it is not clear if they prefer to be thought of as birds or fruit.

Being an island nation in the mid-latitudes with 17 peaks above 10,000 ft (3,000 m), you might expect there would be no shortage of moisture and uplift to form clouds and precipitation. There are sea breezes, mountain/valley circulations, orographic uplift of prevailing winds, periodic mid-latitude cyclones and the occasional tropical storm to get things started. But, that’s not the case this year.

The North Island is currently experiencing its worst drought in over 30 years. Many places have experienced less than half of normal precipitation this summer, according to NIWA (their version of NOAA). These are places that normally receive 40-80 inches of precipitation per year. (Remember, summer just ended down there and that 500 mm is roughly 20 inches.)

Wellington, the nation’s capital, has begun rationing water for the first time in recorded history (which covers about 170 years). The chair of the Wellington region’s committee in charge of the water supply was quoted as saying, “People should shower with a friend, if that’s an option . . . or put a brick in the toilet. If you know anyone who’s particularly adept at rain dances, then encourage them to get out there and do what they do.”

One of the previous links mentioned that the drought is so bad, it can be seen from space. They didn’t provide evidence to back up that claim, so I guess I have to do it. Here’s what VIIRS saw on 28 January 2013 (before the North Island went 4-6 weeks without any significant precipitation):

"True Color" RGB composite of VIIRS channels M-03, M-04 and M-05, taken 01:49 UTC 28 January 2013

And here is what VIIRS saw on 21 March 2013 (after 4-6 weeks without significant precipitation):

"True Color" RGB composite of VIIRS channels M-03, M-04, and M-05, taken 02:15 UTC 21 March 2012

The two images above are “true color” composites. If you look closely at the two images, you might notice significantly less green vegetation in the 21 March 2013 image, particularly in box that covers 39° to 40° S latitude and 174° to 176° E longitude. (Remember, you can see the full-resolution image by clicking on it, and then on the “1434×2120″ link below the banner.)

Not convincing? Maybe it shows up a bit better in the “natural color” composite, which has a strong vegetation signal. Here are those images:

False color composite of VIIRS channels M-05, M-07 and M-10, taken 01:49 UTC 28 January 2013

.

False color composite of VIIRS channels M-05, M-07 and M-10, taken 02:15 UTC 21 March 2012

And just to be clear, here are the images zoomed in on the west side of the North Island, where the drought has hit the hardest:

Drought impact on vegetation in the North Island of New Zealand between 28 January (left) and 21 March 2013 (right)

In the image on the left, from 28 January, light green areas represent grassland/pasture (backed up by this land use map) and dark green areas represent forests. In the image on the right, from 21 March, the grassy areas have turned brown while the forests have remained green. Six weeks with almost no rain will do that to grass.

While the “true color” and “natural color” RGB composites are only qualitative (and require viewers to be able to distinguish sometimes subtle changes in the amount of green in the images), there are ways to quantify the “greenness” of vegetation from satellite. The most widely used method is the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI for short). The NDVI has been calculated for more than 40 years with Landsat and AVHRR. We can do the same calculation with VIIRS. That’s what is shown below.

VIIRS NDVI images of New Zealand from 28 January (left) and 21 March 2013 (right)

On this color scale, red and yellow colors indicate high values of NDVI (or very green vegetation). Green and blue colors indicate low values of NDVI (sparse, dead or brown vegetation). Notice how most of the North Island has gone from yellow or red in January (on the left) to blue or green in March (on the right). NDVI values have decreased by 20-30% over this period.

I guess if there is one benefit of the drought, it’s that it has been clear enough over New Zealand for satellites to see it. In fact, January and February have broken records for the amount of sunshine in many parts of the country. The land of the long, white cloud hasn’t been living up to its name.

If that wasn’t bad enough, here’s video from NBC News where Brian Williams reveals a factory was on fire for three hours before anyone noticed because the smog was so thick!

Did you happen to notice in the beginning of the NBC video that the “air pollution is so bad that the thick smog can now be seen from space”? Of course, the satellite image shown in that clip came from MODIS. (It must have friends in high places. That, or people get the MODIS images out on their blogs less than two weeks after the event occurred, unlike this blog.) Needless to say, VIIRS has seen the smog, too, and it is terrible.

For comparison purposes, here’s what a clean air day looks like over eastern China:

VIIRS "true color" RGB composite of channels M-03, M-04 and M-05, taken 05:21 UTC 28 September 2012

This is a “true color” composite taken 05:21 UTC 28 September 2012. (As always, click on the image, then on the “2040×1552″ link below the banner to see the full resolution image.) There appears to be some air pollution in that image (look near 33° N latitude between 112° and 116° E longitude), but it’s not that noticeable.

Here’s what it looks like when Beijing is reporting record levels of air pollution (04:56 UTC 14 January 2013):

VIIRS true color RGB composite of channels M-03, M-04 and M-05, taken 04:56 UTC 14 January 2013

You may have heard of a “brown cloud of pollution“. Here the clouds actually appear brown thanks to all that pollution. Notice the area around Shijiazhuang – the most polluted city in China – and how brown those clouds are in comparison to the clouds on the left and right edges of the image. Then look south from Shijiazhuang to where everything south and west of the cloud bank has a dull gray color. That is all smog! It’s enough to make anyone with a respiratory condition want to cough up a lung just from seeing this.

Now, this is a complicated scene with clouds, snow, ice and smog. So, to clear things up (in a manner of speaking), here is the same image with everything labelled:

VIIRS true color RGB composite of channels M-03, M-04, and M-05, taken 04:56 UTC 14 January 2013

The gray smog can be seen around Beijing as well, but it pales in comparison to the rest of eastern China. Think about that! Replay the videos above and consider that might not have even been the worst smog in China at the time!

Too bad there are a lot of clouds over the area. What does it look like on a “clearer” day? (“Clearer”, of course, refers to the amount of clouds, not air pollution.) It looks worse! The image below was taken at 04:32 UTC on 26 January 2013:

VIIRS true color RGB composite of VIIRS channels M-03, M-04, and M-05, taken 04:32 UTC 26 January 2013

The area covered by smog rivals the area of South Korea, which is visible on the right side of the image. (One of the reports I linked to above put the figure at 1/7th of the land area of China covered by smog around this time, which is actually a lot bigger than South Korea!) I’m just counting the smog in the image that is thick enough to completely obscure the surface. There is likely smog that isn’t as obvious (and isn’t labelled) in that image. The snow between Shijiazhuang, Tianjin and Beijing is covered by smog that isn’t quite thick enough to totally obscure it. And the large area of snow south of Tianjin is likely covered with smog. (It sure is a lot dirtier in appearance than the snow near the top of the image.)

If you don’t believe my labels, the “pseudo-true color” or “natural color” RGB composite clearly identifies the low clouds (which usually appear a dirty, off-white color even without smog), ice clouds (pale cyan) and snow (vivid cyan):

VIIRS false color RGB composite of channels M-05, M-07 and M-10 (a.k.a. "natural color"), taken 04:32 UTC 26 January 2013

Notice the smog in this image. It is an unholy grayish-greenish color with a value near 70-105-93 in R-G-B color space. The “natural color” composite is made from channels M-05 (0.67 µm, blue), M-07 (0.87 µm, green) and M-10 (1.61 µm, red), which are longer wavelengths than their “true color” counterparts. Longer wavelengths mean reduced scattering by atmospheric aerosols, so the higher green value may be due to the strong surface vegetation signal in M-07 being able to penetrate through the smog. (Either that or the smog is composed of some chemical compound that has a higher reflectivity value in M-07 than in the other two channels.)

I’ve looked at the EUMETSAT Dust, Daytime Microphysics and Nighttime Microphysics/Fog RGBs, which you might think would show super-thick smog and they don’t. At least, it’s not obvious.

The EUMESAT Dust RGB applied to VIIRS, valid 04:32 UTC 26 January 2013

The Dust RGB above uses M-14 (8.55 µm), M-15 (10.7 µm) and M-16 (12.0 µm) and requires there to be a large temperature contrast between the dust (cool) and the background surface (hot). Smog almost always occurs when there is a temperature inversion (the air at the ground is colder than the air above) so the necessary temperature contrast won’t exist.

The Daytime Microphysics RGB shows the smoggy areas are a slightly different color than other cloud-free surfaces, but that color can be confused with other non-smoggy surfaces. The clouds really stand out, though:

The EUMETSAT Daytime Microphysics RGB applied to VIIRS, valid 04:32 UTC 26 January 2013

Perhaps, with a different scaling, the smog might stand out more.

The Nighttime Microphysics RGB from the night before (18:50 UTC 25 January 2013) is interesting. Notice the cloud identified by the letter “B” and the non-cloud next to it, “A”:

The EUMETSAT Nighttime Microphysics/Fog RGB applied to VIIRS, valid 18:50 UTC 25 January 2013

Now compare this with the Day/Night Band image from the same time:

VIIRS Day/Night Band image of eastern China, taken 18:50 UTC 25 January 2013

This was a day before full moon. Thanks to the moon, clouds, snow and smog are visible in addition to the city lights. Points “A” and “B” have nearly identical brightness in the Day/Night Band, but only “B” shows up as a cloud in the Nighttime Microphysics RGB. These lighter areas around “A” and “B” are partially obscuring city lights, indicating “B” is a cloud, while “A” is smog. (If either was snow, you’d be able to see the city lights more clearly. See the lighter area northwest of Beijing, which is snow.)

Nothing sees super-smog like the true color composite, but the Day/Night Band will see it as long as there is enough moonlight. Smog as optically thick as a cloud… *hacking cough* … Yuck!

We just looked at what happens in the atmosphere when a volcano like Copahue erupts. We also looked at the impact the 1912 eruption of Novarupta still has today. And, before VIIRS was launched into space, there was Eyjafjallajökull – the Icelandic volcano that nobody could pronounce. (Think “Eye-a-Fiat-la-yo-could” [click here to hear audio of some guy saying it properly].) These are examples of what geologists would refer to as an “explosive eruption”. Not all volcanoes blow ash into the atmosphere. Think of Kilauea in Hawaii – this is an example of an “effusive eruption” where lava oozes or bubbles up out of the ground in a rather non-violent manner. These are the most common volcanic eruptions on land that everyone should already be familiar with.

But, what happens when the volcano is underwater? You get what a group of New Zealand geologists are calling “Tangaroan” (named after the Maori god of the sea, Tangaroa). This article explains it in more detail, but the short version is this: at the bottom of the ocean, there is immense pressure from the weight of the water above the volcano that prevents an eruption from being truly “explosive”, yet the eruptions are often more violent than an effusive eruption. The magma, filled with gas, erupts into the ocean where the outer edges are instantly cooled and solidified. (The water is cold at the bottom of the ocean.) This traps all the gas inside and you get a rock that’s filled with millions of tiny air bubbles, which is called pumice. This new rock can be so light, it floats to the surface.

What does this have to do with VIIRS or a blog about imagery from weather satellites? Large underwater volcanic eruptions can create large quantities of pumice that float to the surface of the ocean and create what are called pumice rafts. VIIRS has seen these pumice rafts.

Here is a “natural color” or “pseudo-true color” RGB composite of VIIRS channels I-01 (0.64 µm, blue), I-02 (0.865 µm, green) and I-03 (1.61 µm, red), taken at 01:40 UTC 27 August 2012. Notice anything unusual in the water?

False color RGB composite of VIIRS channels I-01, I-02 and I-03, taken 01:40 UTC 27 August 2012

As always, click on the image, then on the “2798×2840″ link below the banner to see the full resolution image. All those pale blue-gray swirls in the ocean surrounding Raoul Island and Macauley Island are the pumice rafts. They almost look like someone sprayed “Silly String” in the ocean.

To get a sense of the scale of these rafts, the latitude lines plotted on the image are ~111 km apart. Some of these rafts are 1-2 km wide in places. In this image you can see pumice rafts stretching from about 27.5 °S to 31.5 °S latitude and from about 175 °W to 178 °E longitude. That is a lot of floating rocks!

Here is a zoomed version of the previous image:

False color RGB composite of VIIRS channels I-01, I-02 and I-03, taken 01:40 UTC 27 August 2012

The main concentration of floating pumice is in the box the covers the area from 29 °S to 30 °S latitude and from about 176 °W to 178 °E longitude, although there is plenty of pumice south of that box – it’s just a little harder to see.

As an aside, Raoul and Macauley islands are part of the Kermadec Islands of New Zealand. If you’re interested, the New Zealand government is always looking for volunteers to spend six months on Raoul Island pulling weeds and keeping invasive species off the island. (There, that saves me from doing a Remote Island post to cover this.)

These pumice rafts have been traced back to the eruption of the Havre Seamount (an underwater volcano) on 18 July 2012. This new eruption is part of the “Ring of Fire” in the southwestern part of the Pacific Ocean, roughly 1,000 kilometers northeast of New Zealand. If you believe the Wikipedia article linked to first in this paragraph, the eruption was unknown until an aircraft passenger took pictures of the pumice raft from her plane on 31 July 2012. I have been able to track this pumice back to 26 July 2012. Before that, it is too cloudy, making it difficult to see anything. (Apparently, MODIS saw it on 19 July 2012.)

False color RGB composite of VIIRS channels I-01, I-02 and I-03, taken 01:39 UTC 26 July 2012

The red arrow points to the pumice raft. There’s a nice looking cyclone southwest of the pumice, but I’m not sure if it was given a name. If you zoom in, you can see Cheeseman Island and Curtis Island off to the east of the raft. These islands were obscured by clouds on the 27 August 2012 overpass. Cheeseman Island is only 7.6 ha (19 acres) and Curtis Island is 40 ha (99 acres), yet VIIRS has the resolution to see them!

In an effort to highlight these pumice rafts, a PCI analysis was performed on the five VIIRS high-resolution imagery (I-band) channels. PCI analysis uses principal components to identify the major modes of variability within the data. Analysis of the 5 VIIRS I-bands resulted in 5 PCIs or component images. Of those components, PCI-2, 3, and 5 appeared to show the pumice rafts. A particular RGB combination of those three components (red = PCI-5, green = PCI-2 and blue = PCI-3) resulted in the pumice appearing red on a green-blue ocean. Clouds are white, then cyan and then red for colder cloud-top temperatures. (Certain pepper-like black pixels are out of range in the PCI analysis.) The three principal components that highlight the pumice rafts are shown in the figure below, along with the resulting RGB composite. Unfortunately, these images were made using McIDAS-X, which has a habit of plotting VIIRS data upside-down. Therefore, north in each image is at the bottom.

PCI Analysis of the 5 VIIRS I-band channels from 01:40 UTC 27 August 2012. Panels A, B, and C are the second, third and fifth principal component images from this analysis (PCI-2, PCI-3 and PCI-5). Panel D is an RGB composite of these three images with PCI-5 as red, PCI-2 as green and PCI-3 as blue. Images courtesy Don Hillger.

This in an image you’ll want to zoom in on to see the details as you consider the information in the previous paragraph. There are two main results of this PCI analysis: it can be used to highlight pumice rafts (although they have the same color as cold cloud tops) and the temperature information from channel I-5 (11.5 µm), which shows up in PCI-5, indicates that the pumice has a tendency to collect along gradients in sea surface temperature.

Being able to track the pumice rafts is important for geology, biology and oceanography. They can act as a tracer for following ocean currents. Some of them crack and fill with water, causing them to sink to the bottom, depositing the newly formed rock in other parts of the sea floor. The nature of the pumice gives clues about what happens in underwater volcanoes, a process that is not well known at this point. And, as these floating pieces of pumice are carried around, organisms like algae, coral, and barnacles will attach to them and grow, eventually settling in far away places. Studying these rafts may shed new light on how life can spread across the oceans.

So, yes – rocks can float. And they can be seen by a weather satellite with 375 m resolution.

Right before Christmas, Copahue was at it again. It erupted on 22 December 2012, sending a cloud of sulfur ash into the atmosphere, and MODIS got there first. VIIRS got there 4 hours later and took this image:

VIIRS "true color" RGB composite of channels M-03, M-04 and M-05, taken 18:38 UTC 22 December 2012

This is a “true color” image just like the MODIS one in the link. Make sure you click on the image, then on the “3200×2304″ link below the banner to see it in full resolution. Then see if you can spot the volcanic ash cloud from Copahue. I’ll give you a hint: it’s the only cloud that appears brownish-gray.

If you still can’t see it, here’s a zoomed-in image with a yellow arrow to help you out:

VIIRS "true color" RGB composite of the Copahue volcano, taken 18:38 UTC 22 December 2012

Now compare the ash cloud in the VIIRS image with the ash cloud in the MODIS image from 4 hours earlier. (This is easier to do if you can locate in the VIIRS image the lakes marked as “Embalse los Barreales” in the MODIS image.) There’s a lot less ash in the VIIRS image, right?

Not so fast. As the ash dispersed, the plume thinned out, making it harder to see against the brown background surface. But, that doesn’t mean that it’s not there. Here’s the “split window difference” image from VIIRS at the same time:

VIIRS "split window difference" image (M-15 - M-16) taken 18:38 UTC 22 December 2012

That whole black plume is volcanic ash detected by the split window difference. The yellow arrow points to Copahue and the ash plume that is visible in the true color image. The red arrow points to the ash plume that is not visible in the true color image, yet is detected by this simple channel difference (M-15 minus M-16). A victory for the split window technique!

It was also a victory for the EUMETSAT Dust RGB, which didn’t work for the 100-year-old ash cloud over Alaska. Here’s what that RGB composite looks like when applied to VIIRS:

EUMETSAT's Dust RGB composite applied to VIIRS from 18:38 UTC 22 December 2012

It is interesting that the ash plume right over Copahue is tough to detect in this RGB composite because it is red, just like a lot of the other clouds. As the plume thins out away from the volcano, its color changes to a variety of pastels of pink and blue, and even appears to extend out over the Atlantic Ocean. Where clouds and ash coexist near the coast of Argentina, pixels show up orange and yellow and green (click to the high-resolution image to see that).

Why does the plume appear to extend into the Atlantic Ocean in the EUMETSAT Dust RGB, and not in the split window difference? It is due to the fact that the Dust RGB uses channel M-14 (8.55 µm), which is sensitive to absorption by sulfur dioxide (SO₂) gas. The split window difference is better at detecting sulfuric ash particles, which may have mostly settled out of the atmosphere before reaching the Atlantic coast. There are likely still some ash particles in the plume, though – just not enough to show up easily in the split window difference. Detection of SO₂ gas plumes has been used to infer the presence of volcanic ash.

Being able to see the location of the volcanic ash very important to pilots. Aircraft engines don’t work that well when they are sucking in particles of liquified sulfur and other abrasive and corrosive materials spit out by stinky volcanoes like Copahue.

Here is a visible image (0.6 µm) from Meteosat-9, taken 12 December 2012 (at 12:00 UTC):

Meteosat-9 visible image of central Europe, taken 12:00 UTC 12 December 2012. Image courtesy EUMETSAT.

And here’s the infrared image (10.8 µm) from the same time:

Meteosat-9 IR-window image of central Europe, taken 12:00 UTC 12 December 2012. Image courtesy EUMETSAT.

These are images provided by EUMETSAT. Can you tell where the snow is? Or what is snow and what is cloud?

Here’s a much higher resolution image from VIIRS (zoomed in the Alps), taken only 3 minutes later:

VIIRS visible image (channel I-01) of central Europe, taken 12:03 UTC 12 December 2012

Now is it easy to differentiate clouds from snow? Just changing the resolution doesn’t help that much.

This has long been a problem for satellites operating in visible to infrared wavelengths. Visible-wavelength channels detect clouds based on the fact that they are highly reflective (just like snow). Infrared (IR) channels are sensitive to the temperature of the objects they’re looking at, and detect clouds because they are usually cold (just like snow). So, it can be difficult to distinguish between the two. If you had a time lapse loop of images, you’d most likely see the clouds move, while the snow stays put (or disappears because it is melting). But, what if you only had one image? What if the clouds were anchored to the terrain and didn’t move? How would you detect snow in these cases?

EUMETSAT has developed several RGB composites to help identify snow. The Daytime Microphysics RGB (link goes to PowerPoint file) looks like this:

Meteosat-9 "Daytime Microphysics" RGB composite of central Europe, taken 12:00 UTC 12 December 2012. Image courtesy EUMETSAT.

Snow is hot pink (magenta), which shows up pretty well. Clouds are a multitude of colors based on type, particle size, optical thickness, and phase. That whole PowerPoint file linked above is designed to help you understand all the different colors.

The Daytime Microphysics RGB uses a reflectivity calculation for the 3.9 µm channel (the green channel of the RGB). Without bothering to do that calculation, I’ve replaced the reflectivity at 3.9 µm with the reflectivity at 2.25 µm (M-11) when applying this RGB product to VIIRS, and produced a similar result:

VIIRS "Daytime Microphysics" RGB composite of the Alps, taken 12:03 UTC 12 December 2012

Except for the wavelength difference of the green channel (and minor differences between the VIIRS channels and Meteosat channels), everything else is kept the same as the official product definition. Once again, the snow is pink, in sharp contrast to the clouds and the snow-free surfaces. We won’t bother to show the Nighttime Microphysics/Fog RGB (link goes to PowerPoint file) since this is a daytime scene.

EUMETSAT has also developed a Snow RGB (link goes to PowerPoint file):

Meteosat-9 "Snow" RGB composite of central Europe, taken 12:00 UTC 12 December 2012. Image courtesy EUMETSAT.

This also uses the reflectivity calculated for the 3.9 µm channel. Plus, it uses a gamma correction for the blue and green channels. Is it just me, or does snow show up better in the Daytime Microphysics RGB?

If you switch out the 3.9 µm for the 2.25 µm channel again and skip the gamma correction when creating this RGB composite for VIIRS, the snow stands out a lot more:

VIIRS "Snow" RGB (with modifications as explained in the text), taken 12:03 UTC 12 December 2012

Now you have snow ranging from pink to red with gray land areas, black water and pale blue to light pink clouds. This combination of channels makes snow identification easier than the official “Snow RGB”, I think.

All of this is well and good but, for my money, nothing beats what EUMETSAT calls the “natural color” RGB. I have referred to it as the “pseudo-true color“. Here’s the low-resolution EUMETSAT image:

Meteosat-9 "Natural Color" RGB of central Europe, taken 12:00 UTC 12 December 2012. Image courtesy EUMETSAT.

And the higher resolution VIIRS image:

VIIRS "Natural Color" RGB composite of channels M-5, M-7 and M-10, taken 12:03 UTC 12 December 2012

The VIIRS image above uses the moderate resolution channels M-5, M-7 and M-10, although this RGB composite can be made with the high-resolution imagery channels I-01, I-02 and I-03, which basically have the same wavelengths and twice the horizontal resolution. Below is the highest resolution offered by VIIRS (cropped down slightly to reduce memory usage when plotting the data):

VIIRS "Natural Color" RGB composite of channels I-01, I-02 and I-03, taken 12:03 UTC 12 December 2012

Make sure to click on the image and then on the “2594×1955″ link below the banner to see the image in full resolution.

This RGB composite is easier on the eyes and easier to understand. Snow has high reflectivity in M-5 (I-01) and M-7 (I-02) but low reflectivity in M-10 (I-03) so, when combined in the RGB image, it shows up as cyan. Liquid clouds have high reflectivity in all three channels so it shows up as white (or dirty, off-white). The only source of contention is that ice clouds, if they’re thick enough, will also show up as cyan.

Except for the cyan snow and ice, the “natural color” RGB is otherwise similar to a “true color” image. Vegetation shows up green, unlike the other RGB composites where it has been gray or purple or a very yellowish green. That makes it more intuitive for the average viewer. You don’t need to read an entire guide book to understand all the colors that you’re seeing.

Compare all of these RGB composites against the single channel images at the top of the page. They all make it easier to distinguish clouds from snow, although some work better than others. Now compare the VIIRS images with the Meteosat images. Which ones look better?

(To be fair, it’s not all Meteosat’s fault. The images provided by EUMETSAT are low-resolution JPG files [which is a lossy-compression format]. The VIIRS images shown here are loss-less PNG files, which are much larger files to have to store and they require more bandwidth to display.)

As a bonus (consider it your Christmas bonus), here are a few more high-resolution “natural color” images of snow and low clouds over the Alps. These are kept at a 4:3 width-to-height ratio and a 16:9 ratio, so they make ideal desktop wallpapers.

VIIRS "natural color" composite of channels I-01, I-02 and I-03, taken 12:29 UTC 14 November 2012. This is an ideal desktop wallpaper for 4:3 ratio monitors.

That was the 4:3 ratio image. Here’s the 16:9 ratio image:

VIIRS "natural color" composite of channels I-01, I-02 and I-03, taken 12:29 UTC 14 November 2012. This is an ideal desktop wallpaper for 16:9 ratio monitors.

Enjoy the snow (or be glad you don’t have to drive in it)!

The volcano that came to be known as Novarupta erupted on 6 June 1912. It was one of the largest volcanic eruptions of recorded history. It was 10 times more powerful than Mt. St. Helens with 100 times more ash. The explosion was heard more than 1100 km (700 miles) away in Juneau. The force of the eruption caused nearby Mt. Katmai to collapse on itself (10 km away). It formed the Valley of Ten Thousand Smokes and, most importantly for us, covered the surrounding land with 150 m (500 ft) of ash.

This pile of ash – still there today – can be lifted by a stiff breeze (or, more appropriately, “strong breeze” or higher on the Beaufort wind scale), and blown pretty high off the ground (4000 ft according to the news report). This isn’t the first time this has happened. MODIS observed the same thing back in 2003.

So, what did VIIRS see? Here’s the “true color” image, the RGB composite of channels M-03 (0.488 µm, blue), M-04 (0.555 µm, green) and M-05 (0.672 µm, red):

VIIRS "true color" RGB composite of channels M-03, M-04 and M-05, taken 22:23 UTC 30 October 2012

Be sure (as with all the images) to click on the image, then on the link below the banner to see it at full resolution. (The link contains the dimensions of the full size image.)

The ash cloud (blowing right over the center of Kodiak Island) is not as obvious in this image as it was in the MODIS image in the link above, although it is visible. To be fair, the plume was much more optically thick in 2003, and there were fewer clouds and less snow to confuse it with.

Here is the false color (“pseudo-true color” or “natural color”) image, the RGB composite of channels M-05 (0.672 µm, blue), M-07 (0.865 µm, green) and M-10 (1.61 µm, red):

VIIRS false color RGB composite of channels M05, M-07 and M-10, taken 22:23 UTC 30 October 2012

Hmmm. Once again, the ash plume is visible but not particularly noticeable. Is there a way to highlight the ash plume to make it easier to see?

EUMETSAT (the European Organisation for the Exploitation of Meteorological Satellites) has defined an RGB composite for detecting dust. Their product, which was developed primarily to detect dust storms over the Saharan desert, uses channels that are present (or similar to ones that are present) on VIIRS. This means we can apply the dust product for VIIRS as the difference between M-16 and M-15 (red), the difference between M-15 and M-14 (green) and M-15 by itself (blue), all in units of brightness temperature. If you do that, and use the same color scaling they use, you get this image:

The EUMETSAT Dust RGB composite applied to VIIRS for 22:23 UTC 30 October 2012

The arrow points to the source region of the ash plume. In this RGB composite, dust shows up as hot pink (magenta), but it’s barely visible here. The reason is that this dust product is primarily useful where there is a large temperature contrast between the dust plume and the background surface, which we don’t have here.

A more common way to detect volcanic ash is to use the “split-window difference”. The “split-window difference” is the difference in brightness temperature between a 10.7-11.0 µm channel and a 12.0 µm channel. This difference is useful because volcanic ash has a difference of opposite sign to most everything else. Here’s what the split window difference (M-15 – M-16) looks like for this case:

VIIRS "Split-window difference" image from 22:23 UTC 30 October 2012

This image has been scaled so that the colors range from -1 K (black) to +7 K (white). The ash plume stands out a bit more here by being much darker than the background. The only problem is, it isn’t perfect. Large amounts of water vapor, optically thick clouds, desert surfaces and boundary layer temperature inversions can all produce a negative difference (just like volcanic ash does).

These problems can be overcome to a certain extent by combining the “split-window difference” with a Principal Component Image (PCI) analysis technique. (This technique is too complicated to describe here but, if you have access to AMS journals, check out these journal papers.) Now, the ash plume is the only thing that’s black:

VIIRS PCI split window analysis image from 22:23 UTC 30 October 2012. Image courtesy Don Hillger. Upside-down text courtesy McIDAS-X.

Notice the smaller plume identified by the orange arrow. This plume is not easy to identify in any of the previous images. The PCI technique works well. But, we’re not going to stop there.

Remember the dust plumes off the Cape Verde islands? They produced a strong signal in the difference between M-12 (3.7 µm) and M-15 (10.7 µm) due to solar reflection. Does a 100-year-old ash plume produce a similarly strong signal? See for yourself:

VIIRS channel difference image between M-12 and M-15 from 22:23 UTC 30 October 2012

It does produce a signal, but it’s not as bright as the surrounding clouds. The color scale here ranges from -2 K (black) to +90 K (white).

M-06 (0.746 µm) is highly sensitive to anything that reflects solar radiation in the atmosphere or on the surface, which we learned from Hurricane Isaac. Here’s what the M-06 image looks like:

VIIRS channel M-06 image, taken 22:23 UTC 30 October 2012

“Big deal,” you say. “None of those are better than the PCI analysis.” That may be true, but watch what happens when we combine M-06, the M-12 – M-15 image and the split-window difference image in a single RGB composite:

VIIRS RGB composite of M06 (blue), M12 - M15 (green) and M15 - M16 (red), taken 22:23 UTC 30 October 2012

In this composite, blue values represent the M-06 reflectance scaled from 0 to 1.6, green values represent the brightness temperature difference between M-12 and M-15 scaled from -2 K to +90 K, and red values represent the brightness temperature difference between M-15 and M-16 scaled from -1 K to +7 K.

From a theoretical perspective, this RGB composite does exactly what you want: make the thing you’re trying to detect the only thing that is a certain color. For example, the ash plumes are the only things in this image that are green. From a practical perspective, however, this RGB composite doesn’t work so well. It only works because the ash plume is over water (otherwise M-06 wouldn’t be very useful). It only works during the day, where M-06 is available and the difference between M-12 and M-15 is significant (no solar component to M-12 at night).

Plus, the rainbow of colors is difficult to make sense of: green ash; clouds ranging from light blue to purple to orange (a function of optical thickness, particle size, and phase); bright purple snow; dark purple vegetation; maroon water. It’s not exactly pleasing to the eye. In contrast, the PCI analysis technique that uses the split-window difference works day and night, over ocean and over land. And it isn’t confusing to look at. Maybe we should have stopped when we got to the PCI technique. But then, we wouldn’t have learned anything new.

“At 10 o’clock the Captain was walking on deck and saw what he supposed to be an immense iceberg. … the atmosphere was hazy, and then a heavy snow squall came up which shut it out entirely from our view. Not long after the sun shone again, and I went up again and with the glass, tried to get an outline of it to sketch its form. The sun seemed so dazzling on the water, and the tops of the apparent icebergs covered with snow; the outline was very indistinct. We were all the time nearing the object and on looking again the Captain pronounced it to be land. The Island is not laid down on the chart, neither is it in the Epitome, so we are perhaps the discoverers, … I think it must be a twin to Desolation Island, it is certainly a frigid looking place.”

VIIRS false color composite of channels I-01, I-02 and I-03, taken 09:16 UTC 27 October 2012

The text above was the journal entry of Isabel Heard, wife of the American Captain John Heard, on 25 November 1853. The couple was en route from Boston, Massachusetts to Melbourne, Australia (a long time to spend in a boat) and the land they spotted became known as Heard Island. It should be noted that “Desolation Island” refers to Îles Kerguelen, which has its own unique story of discovery.

Kerguelen Island was discovered in 1772 by Yves-Joseph de Kerguelen de Trémarec, a French navigator commissioned by King Louis XV to discover the unknown continent in the Southern Hemisphere that he believed to be necessary to balance the globe. (Look at a globe or map of the world and notice that most of the land area is in the Northern Hemisphere.) Kerguelen himself never set foot on the island, but he told his king the island was inhabited and full of forests, fruits and untold riches. He called it “La France Australe” (Southern France). Captain Cook actually did land on the island a few years later and named it Desolation Island because it had none of that stuff, and King Louis XV imprisoned Kerguelen after his lie was discovered. Oops.

Îles Kerguelen, made up of the main island (Kerguelen to us, La Grande Terre to the French) and the many small surrounding islands are part of the French Southern and Antarctic Lands (Terres Australes et Antarctiques Françaises or TAAF). Heard Island is part of the Australian territory of Heard Island and McDonald Islands (HIMI).

These islands are in the “Roaring Forties” and “Furious Fifties”, the region of the Southern Ocean (southern Indian Ocean in this case) between 40 °S and 60 °S latitude. Get out your globe or world map once again and notice that there is very little land in this latitude range. This region is where strong, persistent westerly winds circle the globe. With no land in the way, there isn’t much to disturb this flow. The high winds almost always from the same direction create huge waves of 10 m (33 ft) or more. (Now imagine being John or Isabel Heard. Well, actually, if you suffer from sea-sickness you probably shouldn’t imagine it.) The cold winds flow over the relatively warmer waters of the ocean, forming persistent cloudiness. If you zoom in on the image above (click on the image, then on the “1893×1452″ link below the banner for full resolution) you can see quite a bit of structure in the resulting “cloud streets“.

The persistent cloudiness makes Kerguelen and Heard Island a rare sight from any satellite. We can see them here because the flow is stable and the islands are producing the equivalent of a “rain shadow” on the clouds. (It’s tempting to call it a “cloud shadow” but, since clouds actually do cast shadows, it would just confuse people.) If we zoom in on Kerguelen, this shows up more clearly:

VIIRS false-color RGB composite of channels I-01, I-02 and I-03 taken 09:16 UTC 27 October 2012

Notice how all the clouds are piling up on the west (windward) side of Kerguelen, where the highest mountains, are located. (These mountains are covered with snow and glaciers, as the cyan color indicates.) Could that be the equivalent of a bow shock near 68 °E longitude where there is an apparent crack in the clouds? On the leeward side of the island, downwind of the mountains, the air is descending, which prevents clouds from forming. Kerguelen created a hole in the clouds by disrupting the flow.

Now, let’s zoom in on Heard Island:

VIIRS false-color RGB composite of channels I-01, I-02 and I-03 taken 09:16 UTC 27 October 2012

In addition to creating a hole in the clouds, Heard Island is creating all sorts of waves in the atmosphere. The ones you probably noticed first look like the wake created by a boat (and have the same basic cause). But, why do they start well out ahead of the island where the yellow arrow is pointing? Because those first waves are actually caused by the McDonald Islands (discovered by Capt. William McDonald in 1854). Even though the highest point on McDonald Island is only 186 m above mean sea level (610 ft), it’s enough to disrupt the flow.

The highest point on Heard Island is Mawson Peak at 2745 m (9006 ft), which is actually the highest elevation in Australia. It is part of Big Ben, an active volcano that last erupted in 2008. This peak is creating a series of lenticular clouds in the above image. A patch of cirrus clouds also exists downwind of Heard Island (the more cyan colored clouds), although it is not clear if these clouds were formed by the waves caused by Heard Island.

If you’re interested in visiting either of these islands, here are some other interesting facts: Kerguelen has a year-round population of ~100, almost all scientists. It has a permanent weather station and office maintained by Météo-France (France’s version of the National Weather Service), and the French version of NASA (CNES) has a station for launching rockets and monitoring satellites. Heard Island has no permanent residents. Every few years a scientific expedition sets out for the island to study the geology, biology, weather and climate of the island. The next one is planned for 2014 and is being called an “open source expedition”. There may still be time to join in if you’re looking for an adventure!

VIIRS channel I-01 image taken 12:43 UTC 18 October 2012

This image was taken by the high-resolution visible channel, I-01 (0.64 µm), and was cropped down to reduce the file size. Greenland is in the upper-left corner of the image. The northwest corner of Iceland is visible in the lower-left corner of the image.

So, what’s with all the swirls off the coast of Greenland? Are they clouds swirled around by winds? Or some kind of sea serpent – perhaps a leviathan or a kraken? (Based on the descriptions, they would be big enough for VIIRS to see them.)

Sadly, for all you science fiction and fantasy fanatics, those swirls are just icebergs breaking up as they enter warmer water, the chunks of ice caught up in eddies in the East Greenland Current. This is easier to see when you look at the “true color” image below:

VIIRS "true color" RGB composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5, taken 12:43 UTC 18 October 2012

Make sure to click on the image, then on the “3200×1536″ link below the banner to see the image at full resolution. Since the true color RGB composite is made from moderate resolution channels M-03 (0.488 µm, blue), M-04 (0.555 µm, green) and M-05 (0.672 µm, red), we can include more of the swath before we get into file size issues. That allows us to see the extent of the ice break-up along the Greenland coast.

There is a lot to notice in the true color image. The large icebergs at the top of the image breakup into smaller and smaller icebergs as they float down the east coast of Greenland, until they finally melt. These visible “swirls” (or “eddies” in oceanography terms) extend from 75 °N latitude down to 68 °N latitude where the ice disappears (melts).

The upper-right corner with missing data is on the night side of the “terminator” (the line separating night from day), where we lose the amount of visible radiation needed for these channels to detect stuff. (The Day/Night Band would still collect data, however, as it is much more sensitive to the low levels of visible radiation observed at night.)  See how the ice and the high clouds appear to get a bit more pink as you move from west (left) to east (right)? It’s the same reason cirrus clouds often look pink at sunset. The sun is setting on the North Atlantic and more of the blue radiation from the sun is scattered by the atmosphere than red radiation. The red radiation that’s left is then reflected off the clouds (and ice and snow) toward the satellite.

Just to prove that the swirls are indeed ice and not clouds, here’s the “pseudo-true color” (a.k.a. “natural color”) RGB composite made from channels M-05 (0.672 µm, blue), M-07 (0.865 µm, green) and M-10 (1.61 µm, red):

VIIRS natural color image of channels M-05, M-07 and M-10, taken 12:43 UTC 18 October 2012

The deep blue color of the swirls in this RGB composite is indicative of ice, not clouds. These channels are not impacted by atmospheric scattering at any sun angle, though, so there is no change in the color of the clouds as you approach the terminator.

You may have also noticed the cloud streets downwind of the icebergs off the coast of Greenland. These clouds are formed in the same way as lake-effect clouds are in the Great Lakes. Cold, arctic air flowing south over the icebergs meets the relatively warm water of the open ocean. The moisture evaporating from the warmer waters condenses in the cold air and forms clouds.

How much warmer is that water? Here’s the high-resolution infrared (IR) image (I-05, 11.45 µm):

VIIRS channel I-05 image, taken 12:43 UTC 18 October 2012

At ~375 m resolution at nadir, this is the highest resolution available in the IR on a non-classified satellite today. Look at all the structure in the cloud-free areas of the ocean! Lots of little eddies show up in the IR that are invisible in the visible and near-IR channels shown previously. The only eddies visible in the true color and natural color images are the ones that had ice floating in them. Here we see they extend much further south than the ice.

The ice-free water that is not obscured by clouds is 10-15 K warmer than where the icebergs are found. The eddies are caused by the clash between the southward flowing, cold Eastern Greenland Current and the northbound, warm North Atlantic Drift (the tail end of the Gulf Stream), which are important in the global transport of energy. They are not ship-sinking whirlpools caused by any krakens in the area – at least VIIRS didn’t observe any.

UPDATE (February 2013): Below is another image of the eddies and swirls off the eastern coast of Greenland. This “natural color” image was taken 13:34 UTC 15 February 2013:

VIIRS false color RGB composite of channels M-05, M-07 and M-10, taken 13:34 UTC 15 February 2013. Image courtesy Don Hillger.

Since it is winter, the ice extends further south along the coast before it melts. Once again, there is a lot of structure visible in the edge of the ice, where the East Greenland Current and North Atlantic Drift interact. Another thing to notice is the shadows. At the top of the image just right of center is Scoresby Sound, which is completely frozen over. Given that the sun is pretty low in the sky over Greenland in the winter (if it rises at all, since most of Greenland is north of the Arctic Circle), the mountains south of the Sound cast some pretty long shadows on the ice. It’s possible to use the length of the shadows with the solar zenith angle to estimate the height of those mountains (although there are more accurate ways to determine a mountain’s elevation from satellite). VIIRS provides impressive detail, even from the moderate resolution bands.