May 23, 2009
International: Haze in southeast Asia
It has been very dry here in southeast Asia as at least parts of the region transition from the rainier season to the hotter season. The last few days I have noticed it was distinctly hazier, so I reviewed the satellite images from the MODIS Rapid Response System over the last four days.
The first one (top left), from May 20, includes annotations from Google Earth for orientation. You can see haze over the China Sea off the east coast of Peninsula Malaysia, as well as patches of haze over Indonesia. The next day May 21 (top right) is more cloud covered, but you can see several small smoke plumes in Indonesia and some haze under the clouds. May 22 (bottom left) is one of those unfortunate MODIS images near the equator where much of the area is missing due to gaps in the swaths, but the haze is very dense over the Malacca Strait. Finally, May 23 (bottom right) has an interesting mix of clouds and haze over much of Indonesia. The Singapore National Environmental Agency indicates there are a number of fire related hot spots in Indonesia today. My assessment is that these fires are not enough to be the sole cause of this regional haze, but is likely a contributing factor.
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