NASA: It is happening now - Está sucediendo ahora - 16-03-11 - Kuiseb River Nears the Ocean - Cold Weather Damages Crops in Sinaloa. Mexico - Volcanic Activity at Kilauea. Hawai. USA

Posted by Ricardo Marcenaro | Posted in | Posted on 10:30


Open your mind, your heart to other cultures
Abra su mente, su corazón a otras culturas
You will be a better person
Usted será una mejor persona
RM

Kuiseb River Nears the Ocean

Posted March 22, 2011
Kuiseb River Nears the Ocean
download large image (5 MB, JPEG) acquired February 27, 2011
download GeoTIFF file (26 MB, TIFF) acquired February 27, 2011
download Google Earth file (KML) acquired February 27, 2011

The Namib Desert stretches along the west coast of Africa, from the Kunene (or Cunene) River in the north to the Orange River in the south. About midway between, a third river, the Kuiseb, stretches toward the Atlantic Ocean. Yet the Kuiseb is impermanent, and years have passed without this river actually reaching the ocean. In 2011, sufficient rainfall propelled the Kuiseb toward the Atlantic Coast for the first time in decades.
The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite captured this natural-color image on February 27, 2011. Around Walvis Bay, where the Kuiseb has traditionally drained into the sea, salt works appear as rectangular shapes of orange and brown. Nearby shallow water appears green. South of the salt works, nature takes over. Irregularly shaped dark patches indicate standing water on the desert surface where water has apparently pooled at the end of the Kuiseb River. In the east, the river’s braided channels resemble dark, tangled threads.
The Kuiseb marks a major landscape change in the desert. Bare rocks prevail north of the river, while marching sand dunes predominate to the south. But the ephemeral water body makes only an imperfect boundary.
This image shows numerous sand dunes that have migrated past the Kuiseb and now border on Walvis Bay. By washing out accumulated sand, flash floods on the river generally prevent dunes from migrating past it—when flash floods occur. The cold Benguela Current flowing along the Atlantic Coast prevents much precipitation from moving inland, leaving the Namib Desert parched. Persistently dry conditions allow dunes to continue northward when there is no flowing water in their way.
Human activity also has affected the river’s path. A flood in 1963 caused major damage to Walvis Bay, and the subsequent construction of an embankment has blocked the Kuiseb River channel and caused the river to lose direction. Later floods pushed the river into an area of impermanent wetlands, but conditions were too dry to enable the Kuiseb to reach all the way to the Atlantic Ocean until 2011. The pool of water nearest the coast snakes northward to the bay, almost touching the salt works.
Water—or the lack of it—shapes not just landscapes but also human lives. The United Nations reports that in urban areas of Sub-Saharan Africa, up to 50 percent of the population lacks access to adequate water supplies, and 60 percent lacks adequate water sanitation. UN Water established 2005–2015 as the "Water for Life Decade," and established March 22 as its annual World Water Day.

  1. Links

  2. World Water Day
  3. World Water Day 2011
NASA Earth Observatory image created by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using EO-1 ALI data provided courtesy of the NASA EO-1 team and the United States Geological Survey. Caption by Michon Scott with information from Guido van Langenhove, Hydrological Services Namibia.
Instrument: 
EO-1 - ALI

Cold Weather Damages Crops in Sinaloa, Mexico

Posted March 23, 2011
Cold Weather Damages Crops in Sinaloa, Mexico
Color bar for Cold Weather Damages Crops in Sinaloa, Mexico
download large image (3 MB, JPEG) acquired February 18, 2011 - March 5, 2011
download GeoTIFF file (9 MB, TIFF) acquired February 18, 2011 - March 5, 2011
download Google Earth file (KML) acquired February 18, 2011 - March 5, 2011


With an average temperature of 24 degrees Celsius (76 degrees Fahrenheit) in the month of February, the Mexican state of Sinaloa is a popular winter vacation spot. It is also ideal for winter crops. A sizable portion of Mexico’s corn is grown in Sinaloa, and much of that is winter corn. Planted in December and January, the corn is ready for harvest in May or June.
In February 2011, frigid winter weather crept south. Temperatures in Sinaloa dipped as low as -8 degrees Celsius (18 Fahrenheit) in a cold snap that lasted nearly a week. By the end of that week, frost had destroyed the corn crop. The damage appears in data acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite between February 18 and March 5, 2011. This image shows vegetation growth during that period compared with the average growth for the same time between 2000 and 2010.
The deep brown tones near the shore are areas that were growing significantly less than average. Sinaloa’s winter corn crop is mostly irrigated, so it normally grows much more vigorously than the surrounding vegetation. As a result, anything that impedes growth will appear to have a much greater impact on the irrigated crop, even though both natural vegetation and crops were damaged. This makes the damaged crops stand out in the comparison between average growing conditions and growth in February 2011.
According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Foreign Agricultural Service, as much as 90 percent of Sinaloa’s winter corn crop—about 90,000 hectares—may have been damaged in the cold snap. Winter corn accounts for about 25 percent of Mexico’s total corn crop, and 75 percent of it is grown in Sinaloa.

  1. References

  2. Trent, A. (2011, March). Mexico: Cold snap destroys winter corn in Sinaloa. In World Agricultural Production. United States Department of Agriculture Foreign Agricultural Service. Accessed March 14, 2011.
  3. Weather Underground. (2011, February). History for Los Mochis, Mexico. Accessed March 14, 2011.
NASA Earth Observatory image created by Jesse Allen, Earth Observatory, using data provided by Inbal Reshef, Global Agricultural Monitoring Project. Caption by Holli Riebeek.
Instrument: 
Terra - MODIS

Volcanic Activity at Kilauea

Posted March 24, 2011
Volcanic Activity at Kilauea
download large image (571 KB, JPEG) acquired March 18, 2011
Volcanic Activity at Kilauea
download large image (436 KB, JPEG) acquired January 16, 2010


On March 5, 2011, one of the world’s most active volcanoes—Kilauea—surged with flows of fresh lava and the opening of a new fissure. The eruption touched off a forest fire that burned for much of the month and threatened one of Hawaii’s protected rainforests, according to news reports.
After many cloud-covered days, NASA’s Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on the Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite captured a false-color image of the area (top) on March 18, 2011. A similar view from January 16, 2010, is provided for comparison.
In the image—which depicts mostly infrared wavelengths of light—vegetation is green, older lava flows are brown to black, and “hot” areas are red. In this case, the scorched land in the burn scar appears slightly red and brown, the still-burning forest fire appears bright red, and bare lava is black or very dark purple. In the 2010 image, bright red, active lava flows stand out within and near Pu’u ’O’o.
About 8 miles (13 kilometers) east of the volcano summit and along the rift zone between Napau Crater and Pu’u ’O’o, the Kamoamoa fissure spewed fresh lava as much as 50 meters (160 feet) into the air. Lava oozed several kilometers downhill and ceased flowing on March 9, according to the Hawaii Volcano Observatory. Just before the new fissures opened, magma withdrew beneath Pu’u ’O’o, and the inner crater collapsed 115 meters (377 feet).
As of March 22, the wildfire near Kilauea had grown to about 1,924 acres and there is “no estimated containment date,” according to Gary Wuchner of the National Park Service, in an interview with the Honolulu Star-Advertiser. The northern edge of the fire was closing in on a special ecological area within Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.
Kilauea is a shield volcano with a low angle and broad shape like the shields used by Hawaiian warriors of the past. They are usually built from the successive lava flows piling one on top of the other. The volcano’s current active period has been ongoing since 1983.

  1. References

  2. Global Volcanism Program (n.d.). Shield Volcanoes. Accessed March 23, 2011.
  3. Honolulu Star-Advertiser (2011, March 22). Big Island wild fire poses threat to environmentally sensitive area. Accessed March 23, 2011.
  4. USGS Hawaii Volcano Observatory (n.d.). Kīlauea—Perhaps the World’s Most Active Volcano. Accessed March 23, 2011.
  5. USGS Hawaii Volcano Observatory (2011, March 5). Pu’u ’O’o crater floor collapse followed by middle east rift zone eruption. Accessed March 23, 2011.
  6. USGS Hawaii Volcano Observatory (2011, March 6). Fissure on Kīlauea’s east rift zone continues to erupt. Accessed March 23, 2011.
More images of this event in Natural Hazards
NASA Earth Observatory image created by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon, using EO-1 ALI data provided courtesy of the NASA EO-1 team. Caption by Mike Carlowicz.
Instrument: 
EO-1 - ALI


NASA: It is happening now - Está sucediendo ahora - 16-03-11 - Kuiseb River Nears the Ocean - Cold Weather Damages Crops in Sinaloa. Mexico - Volcanic Activity at Kilauea. Hawai. USA









You have an alphabetical guide in the foot of the page in the blog: solitary dog sculptor
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Usted tiene una guía alfabética al pie de la página en el blog: solitary dog sculptor
En el blog: Solitary Dog Sculptor I, la guia alfabética está en el costado derecho de la página
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My blogs are an open house to all cultures, religions and countries. Be a follower if you like it, with this action you are building a new culture of tolerance, open mind and heart for peace, love and human respect.

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