May 21, 2008
Okeechobee Fires Continue
Well, we continue to see the Okeechobee fire activity (left image) in the MODIs True color imagery. There is a long thin plume originating from west of the Lake blowing east. A second smaller plume can also be seen north of Orlando, towards the top of the image. Elsewhere in the US (right image), air quality seems to have improved over the southeast and is about the same over California. Here in the D.C area, good air quality continues despite the higher temperatures (mid-70s) today.
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Dear Ana,
Great pictures (obviously not great what happened) but is this service from Google available for Europe? There were some major fires in Spain and I would love to see pics like this from those events and the impact they have on the air.
Best,
Nico
Posted by: hypotheek at May 23, 2008 4:32 PMNico,
The google part is not a service per se. I downloaded the MODIS RGB (the background) over the U.S, then overlayed the Air Quality Index (AQI) (colored dots) from the EPA AIRNow webpage. These are special kinds of files (files that end with kmz or kml) that can be viewed with google earth. In order to get a similar image for Spain, the MODIS RGB and any surface monitor data would need to be available in that format, but I am not sure if they are. Here is how I made the images, it only takes 1-2 minutes actually.
First, you need to have google earth installed on your computer, you can download it for free from the internet. Then do the following:
1) go to the University of Wisconsin MODIS Today web page at:
http://www.ssec.wisc.edu/modis-today/
2) Select "open in google earth at the top", and open the file with Google earth.
3) The go to the EPA AIRNow web page:
http://www.airnow.gov/index.cfm?action=airnow.showmap&pollutant=PM2.5
Go to the Resources section on the lower left and click on "AQI in Google Earth". This will take you to a page that has instructions for dowloading the current AQI Kmz datafile (just click on the link). Save the datafile on our computer.
4) Then go back to the Google Earth session with the MODIS RGB and open the AIRNow kmz so you can add it to the image.
5) zoom on whatever area you want and then save the file (under the file menu in the upper left corner)
hope this helps. what are the dates/location ?
Ana
Nico, see my previous comment also. Two ways you can view MODIS imagery elsewhere in the world are:
Go to the "Main Data Sources" section in the right pannel of the main USA Air Quality web page, second line, click on "NASA MODIS Rapidfire Browse" or on "Subsets", then click on the part of the world you want. Both should allow you to go back to previous dates.
MODIS imagery can often capture fires, if they are large enough and there were no clouds obscuring the view.
ana
Thanks, the fires were not that recently. I'll do a Google on it, just wanted to see the impact.
Thanks for sharing and the help :)
Posted by: Hypotheek at May 27, 2008 6:19 PM