Images & Animations
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Credit
Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team, NASA/GSFC
A bright white streak of Sahara dust blows southeast from the Bodele Depression towards Lake Chad in this Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) image, acquired on December 28, 2003, by NASA’s Terra satellite. Clouds of dust from earlier storms linger south and west of the lake. The Bodele Depression is one of the most frequent sources of wind-blown dust in the world, and the effects of the regular storms are evident along the shore of Lake Chad. On the northeast shores of the lake, tan ripples show where large sand dunes are building. Beyond the dunes, a faint dark outline traces out the former shores of the shrinking lake. To the east of the lake, the desert landscape of Niger looks as if a giant broom has traced a long sweeping pattern in the ground where the wind storms have scoured the ground.
South of Niger, in Nigeria (left), Cameroon (center), and Chad (right), some of the lingering haze may be caused by fires burning in the grasslands of the Sahel. The fires have been marked with red dots. Because fire is a common land management tool in this region, most of these fires are probably controlled agricultural fires.
Metadata
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Sensor
Terra/MODIS -
Visualization Date
2004-01-10
