August 1, 2009
Poor air quality in Alaska, fires on the West Coast, & transported haze in the Southeast
Air quality conditions remain unhealthy in Alaska; PM2.5 was 120 ug/m3 as of 4:30 pm today. Smoke from significant fires is primarily responsible. Refer to the post Patricia made yesterday; she discussed this event as well. View the Fairbanks North Star Borough site for a brief discussion on Alaska’s air quality. It is also important to note that smoke from the Alaska fires continues to stream into the West and North Central U.S. Air quality conditions vary from good to moderate in this region. Some of this smoke is visible in today’s Aqua MODIS true color image (left image). It is even easier to identify in the IDEA AOD map, which gives a better depiction of the density of fine pollution aerosols (right image).
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Click here for Terra MODIS AOD image.
Fires are also present on the west coast. Smoke plumes are particularly noticeable in California and Oregon. The NASA rapid response team displays all fires as red dots.
Haze, from Mexico and Central America, is present in southern Texas (see UW MODIS Direct image shown above; do not confuse sun glint for haze). Local air quality monitors (EPA AIRNow) measured moderate air quality near the surface. Southern Florida and parts of the East also have moderate PM2.5 concentration levels.
Posted by Nikisa Jordan at August 1, 2009 8:12 PM