Don’t Eat Orange Snow

Roughly one month ago, social media (and, later, more conventional media) outlets were inundated with numerous reports of orange snow in eastern Europe and western Asia – reports like this one, this one and this one. Of course, it wouldn’t really be a hit with the media unless someone could claim it was “apocalyptic”. And of course, the apocalypse didn’t happen. It was simply Saharan dust picked up by high winds from an intense mid-latitude cyclone and deposited far away. We’ve seen this before with VIIRS.

These reports focused on Sochi, Russia, home of the 2014 Winter Olympics. Unfortunately, every time I looked for it in VIIRS imagery, it was cloudy in Sochi. But, the plume of Saharan dust that caused this event was clearly visible over the Mediterranean:

NOAA-20 VIIRS true color composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (10:03 UTC 25 March 2018)

NOAA-20 VIIRS true color composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (10:03 UTC 25 March 2018)

This image came from our new NOAA-20 VIIRS, which, at this point, is not operational and undergoing additional testing. If you look closer, you might also notice smoke or smog over Poland in the image above (upper left corner). If you really zoom in (click on the image to get to the full resolution version), you may notice a brownish tint to the snow along the north shore of the Black Sea – where the BBC report I linked to listed additional sightings of orange snow. But, the dust-covered snow shows up more clearly in this “before and after” image courtesy of S-NPP VIIRS and the @NOAASatellites twitter account:

"Before" and "After" S-NPP VIIRS true color images from 22 March 2018 (left) and 25 March 2018 (right) showing dust on snow in eastern Europe.

“Before” and “After” S-NPP VIIRS true color images from 22 March 2018 (left) and 25 March 2018 (right).

(As an aside: differences in technique used to produce these true color images are likely larger than the differences between S-NPP VIIRS and NOAA-20 VIIRS, so don’t read too much into the fact that the dust-on-snow appears more clearly in the @NOAASatellites image than in my own.)

But, dust-on-snow is not limited to areas within a few thousand kilometers of the Sahara Desert. (It is limited to areas within 40,000 km of the Sahara [in the horizontal dimension, at least], since that is roughly the circumference of the Earth – and assuming you ignore dust storms on Mars.) Dust on snow can happen anywhere you have snow within striking distance of a source of dust. Another example was captured by a new Landsat-like micro-satellite, Venµs, and its non-microsat predecessor, Sentinel-2B, Landsat’s European cousin. A more dramatic example happened last week right here in Colorado. Here is a VIIRS true color image of Colorado from S-NPP VIIRS, taken on 14 April 2018:

S-NPP VIIRS true color composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (19:45 UTC 14 April 2018)

S-NPP VIIRS true color composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (19:45 UTC 14 April 2018)

Here are similar images from NOAA-20 and S-NPP from 18 April 2018:

NOAA-20 VIIRS true color composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (19:20 UTC 18 April 2018)

NOAA-20 VIIRS true color composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (19:20 UTC 18 April 2018)

S-NPP VIIRS true color composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (20:11 UTC 18 April 2018)

S-NPP VIIRS true color composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (20:11 UTC 18 April 2018)

The trick is to compare these two images with the image from 14 April. The other trick is to know where you’re supposed to be looking. (Hint: we’re looking at the Sangre de Cristo mountains in southern Colorado.) Here’s a “before” and “after” image overlay trick I’ve used before. (You may have to refresh the page before it will work.) Both of these images are the S-NPP VIIRS ones, for simplicity:

If you slide the bar left to right, you should notice the snow is more brown in the mountains just right of center in the 18 April image. There are other areas where the snow melted between the two images, plus a couple of small clouds that add to the differences. Of course, this is only 750 m resolution. We get a better view with the 375m-resolution visible channel, I-1:

We lose the color information, of course, since we are looking at a single channel, but it is obvious the snow became less reflective in the 18 April image. And, we can prove that this was a result of dust. Here are the visible, true color, Dust RGB, “Blue Light Dust” and DEBRA Dust images from S-NPP on 17 April 2018, courtesy Steve M.:

S-NPP VIIRS true color composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (20:26 UTC 17 April 2018)

S-NPP VIIRS true color composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (20:26 UTC 17 April 2018)

S-NPP VIIRS Dust RGB image (20:26 UTC 17 April 2018)

S-NPP VIIRS Dust RGB image (20:26 UTC 17 April 2018)

S-NPP VIIRS Blue Light Dust image (20:26 UTC 17 April 2018)

S-NPP VIIRS Blue Light Dust image (20:26 UTC 17 April 2018)

S-NPP VIIRS DEBRA Dust image (20:26 UTC 17 April 2018)

S-NPP VIIRS DEBRA Dust image (20:26 UTC 17 April 2018)

If you are unfamiliar with them, we’ve looked at the Dust RGB, Blue Light Dust and DEBRA before, here and here. As seen in the above images, this was not a difficult to detect dust case. Even Landsat-8 captured this event, which is surprising given the narrow swath and 16-day orbit repeat cycle. (Sure, it’s higher resolution than VIIRS, but will it be overhead when you need it?)

So now we get to why dust-on-snow is important. There is a growing body of research (e.g. this paper) that shows dust-on-snow has a big impact on water resources in places like the Rocky Mountains. You see, dirty snow is less reflective than clean snow. That means it absorbs more solar radiation. This, in turn, means it heats up and melts faster, leading to earlier spring run-off. The end result is less water later in the season, which opens the door to wildfires and more severe droughts. This article that, coincidentally, was published as I was writing this, sums things up nicely. It is so important, the Center for Snow and Avalanche Studies has formed CODOS: the Colorado Dust on Snow Program, whose purpose is to monitor dust on snow and provide weekly updates.

As for why you shouldn’t eat orange snow, that should be obvious. You shouldn’t eat any snow that isn’t pure white (and even that might be risky). But, feel free to eat colorful ice, as long as you know where it came from.

December Fluff

By now, you probably know the drill: a little bit of discussion about a particular subject, throw in a few pop culture references, maybe a video or two, then get to the good stuff – high quality VIIRS imagery. Then, maybe add some follow-up discussion to emphasize how VIIRS can be used to detect, monitor, or improve our understanding of the subject in question. Not today.

You see, VIIRS is constantly taking high quality images of the Earth (except during orbital maneuvers or rare glitches). There isn’t enough time in a day to show them all, or go into a detailed discussion as to their relevance. And, nobody likes to read that much anyway. So, as we busily prepare for the upcoming holidays, we’re going to skip the in-depth discussion and get right to the good stuff.

Here then is a sample of interesting images taken by VIIRS over the years that weren’t featured on their own dedicated blog posts. Keep in mind that they represent the variety of topics that VIIRS can shed some light on. Many of these images represent topics that have already been discussed in great detail in previous posts on this blog. Others haven’t. It is important to keep in mind… See, I’m starting to write too much, which I said I wasn’t going to do. I’ll shut up now.

Without further ado, here’s a VIIRS Natural Color image showing a lake-effect snow event that produced a significant amount of the fluffy, white stuff back in November 2014:

VIIRS Natural Color RGB composite of channels M-5, M-7 and M-10 (18:20 UTC 18 November 2014)

VIIRS Natural Color RGB composite of channels M-5, M-7 and M-10 (18:20 UTC 18 November 2014)

As always, click on the image to bring up the full resolution version. Did you notice all the cloud streets? How about the fact that the most vigorous cloud streets have a cyan color, indicating that they are topped with ice crystals? The whitish clouds are topped with liquid water and… Oops. I’m starting to discuss things in too much detail, which I wasn’t going to do today. Let’s move on.

Here’s another Natural Color RGB image using the high-resolution imagery bands showing a variety of cloud streets and wave clouds over the North Island of New Zealand:

VIIRS Natural Color RGB composite of channels I-1, I-2 and I-3 (02:55 UTC 3 September 2016)

VIIRS Natural Color RGB composite of channels I-1, I-2 and I-3 (02:55 UTC 3 September 2016)

Here’s a Natural Color RGB image showing a total solar eclipse over Scandinavia in 2015:

VIIRS Natural Color RGB composite of channels M-5, M-7 and M-10 (10:06 UTC 20 March 2015)

VIIRS Natural Color RGB composite of channels M-5, M-7 and M-10 (10:06 UTC 20 March 2015)

Here’s a VIIRS True Color image and split-window difference (M-15 – M-16) image showing volcanic ash from the eruption of the volcano Sangeang Api in Indonesia in May 2014:

VIIRS True Color RGB composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (06:20 UTC 31 May 2014)

VIIRS True Color RGB composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (06:20 UTC 31 May 2014)

VIIRS split-window difference (M-15 - M-16) image (06:20 UTC 31 May 2014)

VIIRS split-window difference (M-15 – M-16) image (06:20 UTC 31 May 2014)

Here’s a VIIRS True Color image showing algae and blowing dust over the northern end of the Caspian Sea (plus an almost-bone-dry Aral Sea):

VIIRS True Color RGB composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (09:00 UTC 18 May 2014)

VIIRS True Color RGB composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (09:00 UTC 18 May 2014)

Here is a high-resolution infrared (I-5) image showing a very strong temperature gradient in the Pacific Ocean, off the coast of Hokkaido (Japan):

VIIRS I-5 (11.45 um) image (03:45 UTC 12 December 2016)

VIIRS I-5 (11.45 um) image (03:45 UTC 12 December 2016)

The green-to-red transition just southeast of Hokkaido represents a sea surface temperature change of about 10 K (18 °F) over a distance of 3-5 pixels (1-2 km). This is in a location that the high-resolution Natural Color RGB shows to be ice- and cloud-free:

VIIRS Natural Color RGB composite of channels I-1, I-2 and I-3 (03:45 UTC 12 December 2016)

VIIRS Natural Color RGB composite of channels I-1, I-2 and I-3 (03:45 UTC 12 December 2016)

Here’s a high-resolution infrared (I-5) image showing hurricanes Madeline and Lester headed toward Hawaii from earlier this year:

VIIRS I-5 (11.45 um) image (22:55 UTC 30 August 2016)

VIIRS I-5 (11.45 um) image (22:55 UTC 30 August 2016)

Here are the Fire Temperature RGB (daytime) and Day/Night Band (nighttime) images of a massive collection of wildfires over central Siberia in September 2016:

VIIRS Fire Temperature RGB composite of channels M-10, M-11 and M-12 (05:20 UTC 18 September 2016)

VIIRS Fire Temperature RGB composite of channels M-10, M-11 and M-12 (05:20 UTC 18 September 2016)

VIIRS Day/Night Band image (19:11 UTC 18 September 2016)

VIIRS Day/Night Band image (19:11 UTC 18 September 2016)

Here is a 5-orbit composite of VIIRS Day/Night Band images showing the aurora borealis over Canada (August 2016):

Day/Night Band image composite of 5 consecutive VIIRS orbits (30 August 2016)

Day/Night Band image composite of 5 consecutive VIIRS orbits (30 August 2016)

Here is a view of central Europe at night from the Day/Night Band:

VIIRS Day/Night Band image (01:20 UTC 21 September 2016)

VIIRS Day/Night Band image (01:20 UTC 21 September 2016)

And, finally, for no reason at all, here’s is a picture of Spain wearing a Santa hat (or sleeping cap) made out of clouds:

VIIRS Natural Color RGB composite of channels M-5, M-7 and M-10 (13:05 UTC 18 March 2014)

VIIRS Natural Color RGB composite of channels M-5, M-7 and M-10 (13:05 UTC 18 March 2014)

There you have it. A baker’s ten examples showing a small sample of what VIIRS can do. No doubt it will be taking more interesting images over the next two weeks, since it doesn’t stop working over the holidays – even if you and I do.

Single-Purpose Flour

Think of a snowflake. What happens when that snowflake hits the ground? Now, picture other snowflakes – millions of them – all hitting the ground and piling up on top of each other, crushing our first poor snowflake. Skiers love to talk (and dream) about “fresh powder.” But, what happens when the “powder” isn’t so fresh?

Those delicate, little snow crystals we imagine (or look at directly, if we click on links included in the text) undergo a transformation as soon as they hit the ground. Compression from the weight of the snow above, plus the occasional partial thaw and re-freeze cycle (when temperatures are in the right range), breaks up the snow flakes and converts the 6-pointed crystals into more circular grains of snow. As more and more snow accumulates on top, the air in between the individual snowflakes/grains (which is what helps make it a good insulator) gets squeezed out, making the snow more dense. If enough time passes and enough snow accumulates, individual snow grains can fuse together. These bonded snow grains are called “névé.” If this extra-dense snow can survive a whole summer without melting, then a second winter of this compaction and compression will squeeze out more air and fuse more snow grains, creating the more dense “firn.” After 20 or 30 years of this, what once was a collection of fragile snowflakes becomes a nearly solid mass of ice that we call a “glacier.” Glaciers can be made up of grains that are several inches in length.

But, you don’t need to hear me say it (or read me write it), you can watch a short video where a guy in a thick Scottish accent explains it. (Did you notice his first sentence was a lie? Snow is made of frozen water, so glaciers are made of frozen water, since they are made of snow. I think what he means is that glaciers aren’t formed the same way as a hockey rink, but the way he said it is technically incorrect.) At the end of the video, the narrator hints at why we are looking at glaciers today: glaciers have the power to grind down solid rock.

When a glacier forms on a non-level surface, gravity acts on it, pulling it down the slope. This mass of ice and friction from the motion acts like sandpaper on the underlying rock, converting the rock into a fine powder known as “glacial flour” or, simply, “rock flour.” In the spring and summer months, the meltwater from the glacier collects this glacial flour and transports it downstream, where it may be deposited on the river’s banks. During dry periods, it doesn’t take much wind to loft these fine particles of rock into the air, creating a unique type of dust storm that is not uncommon in Alaska. One that can be seen by satellites.

And, wouldn’t you know it, a significant event occurred at the end of October. Take a look at this VIIRS True Color image from 23 October 2016:

VIIRS True Color RGB composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (21:24 UTC 23 October 2016)

VIIRS True Color RGB composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (21:24 UTC 23 October 2016)

See the big plume of dust over the Gulf of Alaska? Here’s a zoomed in version:

Zoomed in version of above image.

Zoomed in version of above image.

That plume of dust is coming from the Copper River delta. The Copper River is fed by a number of glaciers in Wrangell-St. Elias National Park, plus a few in the Chugach Mountains so it is full of glacial sediment and rock flour (as evidenced by this photo). And, it’s amazingly full of salmon. (How do they see where they’re going when they head back to spawn? And, that water can’t be easy for them to breathe.)

Notice also that we have the perfect set-up for a glacial flour dust event on the Copper River. You can see a low-pressure circulation over the Gulf of Alaska in the above picture, plus we have a cold, Arctic high over the Interior shown in this analysis from the Weather Prediction Center. For those of you familiar with Alaska, note that temperatures were some 30 °F warmer during the last week in October in Cordova (on the coast) than they were in Glennallen (along the river ~150 miles inland). That cold, dense, high-pressure air over the interior of Alaska is going to seek out the warmer, less dense, low-pressure air over the ocean – on the other side of the mountains – and the easiest route to take is the Copper River valley. The air being funneled into that single valley creates high winds, which loft the glacial flour from the river banks into the atmosphere.

Now, depending on your preferences, you might think that the dust shows up better in the Natural Color RGB composite:

VIIRS Natural Color RGB composite of channels I-1, I-2 and I-3 (21:24 UTC 23 October 2016)

VIIRS Natural Color RGB composite of channels I-1, I-2 and I-3 (21:24 UTC 23 October 2016).

But, everyone should agree that the dust is even easier to see the following day:

VIIRS True Color RGB composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (21:01 UTC 24 October 2016)

VIIRS True Color RGB composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (21:01 UTC 24 October 2016)

VIIRS Natural Color RGB composite of channels I-1, I-2 and I-3 (21:01 UTC 24 October 2016)

VIIRS Natural Color RGB composite of channels I-1, I-2 and I-3 (21:01 UTC 24 October 2016)

You can also see a few more plumes start to show up to the southeast, closer to Yakutat.

Since Alaska is far enough north, we get more than one daytime overpass every day. Here’s the same scene on the very next orbit, about a 100 minutes later:

VIIRS Natural Color RGB composite of channels I-1, I-2 and I-3 (22:42 UTC 24 October 2016)

VIIRS Natural Color RGB composite of channels I-1, I-2 and I-3 (22:42 UTC 24 October 2016)

Notice that the dust plume appears darker. What is going on? This is a consequence of the fact that glacial flour, like many aerosol particles, has a tendency to preferentially scatter sunlight in the “forward” direction. At the time of the first orbit (21:01 UTC), both the sun and the dust plume are on the left side of the satellite. The sunlight scatters off the dust in the same (2-dimensional) direction it was traveling and hits the VIIRS detectors. In the second orbit (22:42 UTC), the dust plume is now to the right of the satellite, but the sun is to the left. In this case, forward scattering takes the sunlight off to the east, away from the VIIRS detectors. With less backward scattering, the plume appears darker. This has a bigger impact on the Natural Color imagery, because the Natural Color RGB uses longer wavelength channels where forward scattering is more prevalent. Here’s the True Color image from the second orbit:

VIIRS True Color RGB composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (22:42 UTC 24 October 2016)

VIIRS True Color RGB composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (22:42 UTC 24 October 2016)

The plume is a little darker than the first orbit, but not by as much as in the Natural Color imagery. Here are animations to show that:

Animation of VIIRS True Color images (24 October 2016)

Animation of VIIRS True Color images (24 October 2016)

Animation of VIIRS Natural Color images (24 October 2016)

Animation of VIIRS Natural Color images (24 October 2016)

There are many other interesting details you can see in these animations. For one, you can see turbid waters along the coast in the True Color images that move with the tides and currents. These features are absent in the Natural Color because the ocean is not as reflective at these longer wavelengths. You can also see the shadows cast by the mountains that move with the sun. Some of the mountains seem to change their appearance because VIIRS is viewing them from a different side.

The dust plumes were even more impressive on 25 October 2016, making this a three-day event. The same discussion applies:

VIIRS True Color composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (20:43 UTC 25 October 2016)

VIIRS True Color composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (20:43 UTC 25 October 2016)

VIIRS True Color composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (22:26 UTC 25 October 2016)

VIIRS True Color composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (22:26 UTC 25 October 2016)

VIIRS Natural Color RGB composite of channels I-1, I-2 and I-3 (20:43 UTC 25 October 2016)

VIIRS Natural Color RGB composite of channels I-1, I-2 and I-3 (20:43 UTC 25 October 2016)

VIIRS Natural Color RGB composite of channels I-1, I-2 and I-3 (22:26 UTC 25 October 2016)

VIIRS Natural Color RGB composite of channels I-1, I-2 and I-3 (22:26 UTC 25 October 2016)

Full disclosure, yours truly drove through a glacial flour dust storm along the Delta River on the north side of the Alaska Range back in 2015. Even though it was only about a mile wide, visibility was reduced to only a few hundred yards beyond the hood of my car. It felt as dangerous as driving through any fog. The dust event shown here was not a hazard to drivers, since it was out over the ocean, but it was a hazard to fisherman. Being in a boat near one of these river deltas means dealing with high winds and high waves. To forecasters, these dust plumes provide information about the wind on clear days (when cloud-track wind algorithms are no help), which is useful in a state with very few surface observing sites to take advantage of.

The last remaining issue for the day is one of terminology. You see, “glacial flour dust storm” is a mouthful, and acronyms aren’t always the best solution. (GFDS, anyone?) “Haboob” covers desert dust. “SAL” or “bruma seca” covers Saharan dust specifically. So, what should we call these dust events? Something along the lines of “rock flour”, only more proactive! And, Dusty McDustface is right out!

The Sirocco and the Giant Bowl of Dust

As mentioned before on this blog, there are typhoons, hurricanes, and cyclones, and they’re all basically the same thing. They’re just given a different name depending on where they occur in the world. Similarly, there are many different names for winds (not counting the classification of wind speeds developed by a guy named Beaufort). There’s the Chinook, the Santa Ana, the bora, the föhn (or foehn), the mistral, the zonda, the zephyr and the brickfielder. (A more complete list is here.) Some of these winds are different names for the same phenomenon occurring in different parts of the world, like the föhn, the chinook, the zonda and the Santa Ana. Others are definitely different phenomena, with different characteristics (compare the mistral with the brickfielder), but they all have the same basic cause: the atmosphere is constantly trying to equalize its pressure.

The Mediterranean is home to wide variety of named winds, one of which is the sirocco (or scirocco). (Europe is home to wide variety of languages, so this wind is also known as “ghibli,” “jugo” [pronounced “you-go”], “la calima” and “xlokk” [your guess is as good as mine].) Sirocco is the name given to the strong, southerly or southeasterly wind originating over northern Africa that typically brings hot, dry air and, if it’s strong enough, Saharan dust to Europe. Of course, after picking up moisture from the Mediterranean, the wind becomes humid, making life unpleasant for people along the north shore. Hot, humid and full of dust. Perhaps it’s no surprise that the sirocco is believed to be a cause of insomnia and headaches.

Now, I don’t know how hot it was, but an intense low pressure system passed through the Mediterranean around Leap Day and, out ahead of it, strong, southerly winds carried quite a bit of dust from northern Africa into Italy.  Here’s what it looked like in Algeria. And here’s what it looked like in Salento. See if you can see that dust in these True Color VIIRS images:

VIIRS True Color RGB composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (12:09 UTC 28 February 2016)

VIIRS True Color RGB composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (12:09 UTC 28 February 2016).

VIIRS True Color RGB composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (11:48 UTC 29 February 2016)

VIIRS True Color RGB composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (11:48 UTC 29 February 2016)

No problem, right? With True Color imagery, the dust is usually easy to identify and distinguish from clouds and the ocean because it looks like dust. It’s the same color as the sky over Salento, Italy in that video I linked to. The top image shows multiple source regions of dust (mostly Libya, with a little coming from Tunisia) being blown out over the sea. The second image shows one concentrated plume being pulled into the clouds over the Adriatic Sea, headed for Albania and Greece.

By the way, this storm system brought up to 2 meters (6.5 feet) of snow to northern Italy, and even brought measurable snow to Algeria! Africa and Europe made a trade: you take some of my dust, and I’ll take some of your snow.

But, this wasn’t the worst dust event to hit Europe recently. Here’s what the VIIRS True Color showed over Spain and Portugal on 21 February 2016:

VIIRS True Color RGB composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (12:40 UTC 21 February 2016)

VIIRS True Color RGB composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (12:40 UTC 21 February 2016).

And VIIRS wasn’t the only one to see this dust. Here’s a picture taken by Tim Peake, an astronaut on the International Space Station. Again, it’s easy to pick out the dust because it almost completely obscures the view of the background surface. But, what if the background surface is dust colored?

We switch now to the other side of the world and the Takla Makan desert in China, where the dust has been blowing for the better part of a week:

VIIRS True Color RGB composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (07:11 UTC 4 March 2016)

VIIRS True Color RGB composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (07:11 UTC 4 March 2016).

Can you tell what is dust and what is the desert floor? Can you see the Indian Super Smog on the south side of the Himalayas? Here is the same scene on a clear (no dust) day:

VIIRS True Color RGB composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (07:49 UTC 2 March 2016)

VIIRS True Color RGB composite of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (07:49 UTC 2 March 2016).

There is a subtle difference there, but you need good eyesight to see it. It might be easier to see if you loop the images:

Animation of VIIRS True Color images (1-7 March 2016)

Animation of VIIRS True Color images of the Takla Makan desert (1-7 March 2016).

You’ll have to click on the image to see it animate.

Did you notice the dark brown areas surrounding the Takla Makan? Those are areas that have green vegetation during the summer. Notice how they become completely obscured by the dust as the animation progresses. That’s one one way to tell that there’s dust there. But, as we have seen before, there are other ways to see the dust.

There’s EUMETSAT’s Dust RGB composite applied to VIIRS:

Animation of VIIRS EUMETSAT Dust RGB images (1-7 March 2016)

Animation of VIIRS EUMETSAT Dust RGB images of the Takla Makan desert (1-7 March 2016).

That’s another animation, by the way, so you’ll have to click on it to see it animate. The same is true for the Dynamic Enhanced Background Reduction Algorithm (DEBRA), which we also talked about before:

Animation of VIIRS DEBRA Dust Product images (1-7 March 2016)

Animation of VIIRS DEBRA Dust Product images of the Takla Makan desert (1-7 March 2016)

But, there’s one more dust detection technique we have not discussed before: the “blue light absorption” technique:

Animation of VIIRS Blue Light Dust images (1-7 March 2016)

Animation of VIIRS Blue Light Dust images of the Takla Makan desert (1-7 March 2016).

The Blue Light Dust detection algorithm keys in on the fact that many different kinds of dust absorb blue wavelengths of light more than the longer visible wavelengths. It uses this information to create an RGB composite where dust appears pastel pink, clouds and snow appear blueish and bare ground appears green. Of course, other features can absorb blue light as well, like the lakes near the northeast corner of the animation that show up as pastel pink. But, depending on your visual preferences and ability to distinguish color, the Blue Light Dust product gives another alternative to the hot pink of the EUMETSAT Dust RGB, the yellow of DEBRA, and the slightly paler tan of the True Color RGB.

One question you might ask is, “How come DEBRA shows a more vivid signal than the other methods?” In the True Color RGB, dust is slightly more pale than the background sand, because it’s made up of (generally) smaller sand particles (which are more easily lofted by the wind) that scatter light more effectively, making it appear lighter in color. In the EUMETSAT Dust RGB, dust appears hot pink because the “split window difference” (12 µm – 10.7 µm) is positive, while the difference in brightness temperatures between 10.7 µm and 8.5 µm is near zero and the background land surface is warm. In DEBRA, the intensity of the yellow is related to the confidence that dust is present in the scene based on a series of spectral tests. DEBRA is confident of the presence of dust even when the signals may be difficult to pick out in the other products, either because it’s a superior product, or because its confidence is misguided. (Hopefully, it’s the former and not the latter.)

By the way, the Takla Makan got its name from the native Uyghurs that live there. Takla Makan means “you can get in, but you can’t get out.” It has also been called the “Sea of Death.” I prefer to call it “China’s Big Bowl of Dust.” It’s a large area of sand dunes (bigger than New Mexico, but smaller than Montana) surrounded on most of its circumference by mountains between 5000 and 7000 m (~15,000-21,000+ feet!). The average annual rainfall is less than 1.5 inches (38 mm). That means when the wind blows it easily picks up the dusty surface, but that dust can’t go anywhere because it’s blocked by mountains (unless it blows to the northeast). The dust is trapped in its bowl.

The Takla Makan is also important historically, because travelers on the original Silk Road had to get around it. Notice on this map, there were two routes: one that skirted the northern edge of the Takla Makan and one that went around the southern edge. This part of Asia was the original meeting point between East and West.

CIRA produces all four imagery products over the Takla Makan desert in near-real time, which you can find here. And, in case you’re curious, you can check out how well DEBRA and the EUMETSAT Dust products compare for the dust-laden siroccos over southern Europe and northern Africa by clicking here and here (for the first event over Spain and Portugal) or here and here (for the second one over Italy and the Adriatic Sea).

Horrendous Haboob in the Heart and Heat of History’s Homeland

We mentioned India earlier this year due to a hellish heatwave. It’s only fair that we talk about one of the other cradles of civilization (human history) and another horrible weather-related h-word.

People have been living along the Nile River in northeastern Africa and on the Arabian Peninsula for thousands of years (dating back to the Paleolithic Era). And, every once in a while, a story comes along that makes you wonder why. I’m not talking about the never-ending human conflict that has plagued the region. I’m talking about the hostile climate. (Of course, it wasn’t always hostile. There have been periods of abundant moisture. Read this. Or this.)

If you’ve watched Raiders of the Lost Ark, you are no-doubt familiar with the ancient city of Tanis, and the story about it that was the basis of the whole plot of the movie. If you haven’t seen the movie: 1) shame on you; and, 2) watch this clip.

“The city of Tanis was consumed by the desert in a sandstorm that lasted a whole year.”

I hate to be the bearer of bad news but, that part of the story is false. No year-long sandstorm hit Tanis. And, despite rumors that the actual Ark is buried in Tanis, it has never been found. (Because it’s stored in a giant government warehouse! Duh!) Plus, Indiana Jones is a fictional character in a movie. But, the movie is not entirely false. According to this article, a major archaeological find did take place at Tanis right before World War II (led by a French archaeologist, no less), and very few people know about it because of the war. Plus, there really was an Egyptian Pharaoh named Shoshenq/Shishak.

Even if Tanis was not buried by a year-long sandstorm, that doesn’t mean nasty sandstorms don’t exist. In fact, most of the Middle East is still dealing with a massive sandstorm that lasted a whole week last week. This storm put Beijing’s air pollution to shame. In fact, the dust reached the highest concentrations ever recorded in Jerusalem since Israel became it’s own country in 1948. It was responsible for several fatalities. Here are some pictures. Here’s a video from Saudi Arabia. Here’s what it looked like in Jordan and Lebanon. And, of course, what follows is what the storm looked like in VIIRS imagery.

Since this dust storm lasted a whole week, we got plenty of VIIRS imagery of the event. It started on the afternoon of 6 September 2015, and here’s the first VIIRS True Color image of it:

VIIRS True Color image of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (10:06 UTC 6 September 2015)

VIIRS True Color image of channels M-3, M-4 and M-5 (10:06 UTC 6 September 2015)

Can you see it? (Click on the image to see the full resolution version.) A trained eye can spot it from this image alone. An untrained eye might have difficulty distinguishing it from the rest of the desert and sand. Look for the tan blob over Syria that is obscuring the view of the Euphrates river.

If you can see that, you can track it over the rest of the week:

Animation of VIIRS True Color images (6-12 September 2015)

Animation of VIIRS True Color images (6-12 September 2015)

This animation was reduced to 33% of it’s original size to limit the bandwidth needed to display it. It contains the afternoon overpasses (1 image per day) because you need sunlight to see things in true color. And, while it suffers from the fact that animated GIFs only allow 256 colors (instead of the 16,777,216 colors possible in the original images), you should be able to see the dust “explode” over Israel, Lebanon and Jordan over the next two days. It eventually advects over northwestern Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Cyprus during the rest of the week.

The last time we looked at a major dust storm, the dust was easy to see. It was blown out over the ocean, which is a nice, dark background to provide the contrast needed to see the dust. Here, the dust is nearly the same color as the background – because it is made out of what’s in the background. Is there a better way to detect dust in situations like this?

EUMETSAT developed an RGB composite explicitly for this purpose, and they call it the “Dust RGB.” And we’ve talked about it before. And, here’s what that looks like:

Animation of EUMETSAT Dust RGB images from VIIRS (6-12 September 2015)

Animation of EUMETSAT Dust RGB images from VIIRS (6-12 September 2015)

Since this RGB composite uses only infrared (IR) channels, it works at night (although not as well) so you can get twice as many images over this time period. It also makes dust appear hot pink. The background appears more blue in the daytime images, so the dust does stand out. But, the background becomes more pink/purple at night, so the signal is harder to see at those times. Still, you can see the dust spread from Syria to Egypt over the course of the week.

My colleagues at CIRA have developed another way to identify dust: DEBRA. DEBRA is an acronym for Dynamic Enhanced Background Reduction Algorithm. As the name implies, DEBRA works by subtracting off the expected background signal, thereby reducing the background and enhancing the signal of the dust. So, instead of trying to see brown dust over a brown background (i.e. True Color RGB) or trying to see hot pink dust over a pinkish/purplish background (i.e. EUMETSAT Dust RGB) you get this:

Animation of VIIRS "DEBRA Dust" images (6-11 September 2015)

Animation of VIIRS “DEBRA Dust” images (6-11 September 2015)

DEBRA displays dust as yellow over a grayscale background. The intensity of the yellow is related to the confidence that a given pixel contains dust. It could display dust as any color of the rainbow, but yellow was chosen specifically because there are fewer people that are colorblind toward yellow than any other type of colorblindness. That makes the dust very easy to see for nearly everyone. (Sorry, tritanopes and achromats.) One of the biggest complaints about RGB composites is that the 7-12% of the population that has some form of colorblindness have difficulty trying to see what the images are designed to show. (Since I’m so fond of RGB composites, I better check my white male trichromat privilege. Especially since, according to that last link, white males are disproportionately colorblind.) The point is: we now have a dust detection algorithm that works well with (most) colorblind people, and it makes dust easier to see even for people that aren’t colorblind. DEBRA also works at night, but I’ve only shown daytime images here to save on filesize.

The last two frames of the DEBRA animation show something interesting: an even more massive dust storm in northern Sudan and southern Egypt! Fortunately, fewer people live there, but anyone who was there at the time must have a story to tell about the experience. Here are closer up views of that Sudanese sandstorm (or should I say “haboob” since this is the very definition of the word?). First the True Color:

VIIRS True Color image (10:32 UTC 10 September 2015)

VIIRS True Color image (10:32 UTC 10 September 2015)

Next, the EUMETSAT Dust RGB:

VIIRS EUMETSAT Dust RGB image (10:32 UTC 10 September 2015)

VIIRS EUMETSAT Dust RGB image (10:32 UTC 10 September 2015)

And, finally DEBRA:

MSG-3 DEBRA Dust image (10:30 UTC 10 September 2015)

MSG-3 DEBRA Dust image (10:30 UTC 10 September 2015)

If you’re wondering why the DEBRA image doesn’t seem to line up with the other two, it’s because I cheated. The DEBRA image came from the third Meteosat Second Generation satellite (MSG-3), which is a geostationary satellite. The majority of the haboob was outside our normal VIIRS processing domain for DEBRA, so I grabbed the closest available MSG-3 image. It has much lower spatial resolution, but similar channels, so DEBRA works just as well. And, you don’t necessarily need high spatial resolution to see a dust storm that is ~ 1000 km across. What MSG-3 lacks in spatial resolution, it makes up for in temporal resolution. Instead of two images per day, you get 1 image every 15 minutes. Here is a long loop of MSG-3 images over the course of the whole week, where you can see both sandstorms: (WARNING: this loop may take a long time to load because it contains ~600 large images). Keep your eye on Syria early on, then on Egypt and Sudan. Both haboobs appear to be caused by the outflow of convective storms. Also, how many other dust storms are visible over the Sahara during the week? For comparison purposes, here’s a similar loop of EUMETSAT Dust images. (MSG-3 does not have True Color capability.)

These sandstorms have certainly made their impact: they’ve broken poor air quality records, killed people, made life worse for refugees, closed ports and airports, and even affected the Syrian civil war.  Plus, the storms coincided with a heatwave. Having +100 °F (~40 °C) temperatures, high humidity and not being able to breathe because of the dust sounds awful. Correction: it is awful. And, life goes on in the Middle East.

 

UPDATE #1 (17 September 2015): Here’s a nice, zoomed-in, animated GIF of the Syrian haboob as seen by the DEBRA dust algorithm, made from MSG-3 images:

Click to view 59 MB Animated GIF

UPDATE #2 (17 September 2015): Steve M. also tipped me off to another – even more impressive – haboob that impacted Iraq at the beginning of the month (31 August – 2 September 2015). Here’s an animation of the DEBRA view of it:

Click to view 28 MB Animated GIF

This dust storm was even seen at night by the Day/Night Band, thanks to the available moonlight:

VIIRS Day/Night Band image of Iraq (22:43 UTC 31 August 2015)

VIIRS Day/Night Band image of Iraq (22:43 UTC 31 August 2015)

Look at that cute little swirl. Well, it would be cute if it weren’t so hazardous.

UPDATE #3 (4 October 2021): Here is a link to more information about color blindness, provided by an avid viewer: Everything you need to know about Color Blindness