Ocean blizzards, California fires and an ice-free North-west Passage were among the images captured by European Space Agency and Nasa spacecrafts last month
Composite image of an active Pacific and Atlantic storm season on 30 August 2016, with three hurricanes, two tropical depressions and a former typhoon visible from the ring of geostationary satellites in orbit high above above the Earth.
The dunes of the Taklimakan desert form the shoreline of Bosten Lake in Chinas far north-west. Bosten Lake holds fresh water and supplyings fish for the local population. The lagoon encompasses about 1,000 square kilometres( 390 square miles ), making it one of the largest inland ponds in China. An outflow channel follows the dune margin, where it has been modernised as an engineered canal. A sediment core drilled from the pond bed has shown scientists how ephemeral this water supply is. Geologists now know that the lagoon has dried out 11 days in the past 8,500 years.
Unsettled climate in mid-August 2016 brought rainfall and gusty winds to much of southern and western Australia while complex layers of clouds spread across parts of Queensland. August is mid-winter in Australia and the dry season in Queensland, typically with low humidity and little rainfall, especially inland. On 18 August, a high-pressure system in the Tasman Sea, off the south-eastern Australian coast, had extended a firm ridge along the east coast of Queensland. Also, a high pressure system sat over south-western Australia, while a surface trough moved into south-west Queensland. The clouds in this image appear to sit between the ridge( east) and trough( south-west) in a region of relatively quiet weather.
Cape Coral, Florida, US. Florida has more miles of canals than any other city on Earth. The master-planned community was founded in 1957 and athletics the sprawling ranch-style homes and spacious yards indicative of mid-century American suburbia.
Port of Aden, Yemen with its rugged, extinct volcano and big bay. Aden lies near the south end of the Red Sea, at a critical point where major sea lanes converge between Egypt and the Mediterranean Sea, the Persian Gulf and India, and the long shoreline of east Africa. To protect those sea lane, Great Britain occupied Aden and the surrounding southern parts of the Arabian Peninsula from 1839 to 1967. The small enclave of Djibouti, on the opposite coast in Africa, was held by France for the same reason.
Californias Blue Cut wildfire has burned homes, caused power outages, and prompted more than 82,000 evacuations in San Bernardino county. The magnitude of the damage, however, remains unclear. The image above shows the Blue Cut fire at 10:36 pm Pon 17 August, as observed by Thermal Infrared Sensor( TIRS) on the Landsat 8 satellite. TIRS find in wavelengths of 10. 9 micrometers and 12.0 micrometers, indicating the amount of heat( thermal energy) radiating from the fiery landscape. Cooler areas are dark, while warmer areas are bright. The thermal data was overlaid on a daytime image for added geographic detail.
In August 2016, tourists on a luxury cruise departed Seward Alaska and steered towards the waterways of the Canadian Arctic archipelago. The excursion is one example of the growing human presence in an increasingly ice-free North-west Passage the famed high-latitude sea road that connects the north Atlantic and Pacific oceans. In mid-August 2016, the southern road through the passageway was nearly ice-free.
For most of the year, the North-west Passage is frozen and impassible. But during the summer months, the ice melts and transgress up to varying degrees. The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite( VIIRS) on the Suomi NPP satellite captured the first image of the North-west Passage on 9 August 2016; the second image on 9 August, 2013, when ice was comparatively extensive.
Chuquicamata, in Chiles Atacama Desert, is the largest open-pit copper mine in the world, by excavated volume. The copper deposits were first exploited in pre-Hispanic hours. Open-pit mining began in the early 20 th century when a technique was developed to work low grade oxidised copper ores.
The Volga river stretches across much of Russia, rising in the Valday hills and winding about 2,300 miles( 3,700 km) before draining into the Caspian Sea. On 25 August, Nasa captured a stunning true-colour image of the river delta and the Caspian Sea. The rich greens of the vegetation stand out in bright contrast to the tans of the arid land nearby. Where the run-off from the Volga pours into the Caspian Sea, sediment and perhaps buds of phytoplankton colour the brackish water with a variety of tans, greens, and aqua.
Nasa satellites spotted a fresh burn scar along the Xingu river in the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil. Spreading fires generated a thick pall of smoking on 2 August( then ), and left a dark grey burn scar visible along the riverbank on 8 August( now ).
The images above indicate a segment of the barrier islands in the vicinity of the USs first national seashore park, Cape Hatteras, on North Carolinas Outer Banks.
These islands have been in flux long before the park was established, and they continue to change today. These images prove a moment in time where various stages of island evolution from build-up to corrosion are all visible.
Skinny parts of the island chain, which appear mostly white without any green vegetation, are simple barrier islands. These areas are generally eroding and thinning. The shoreline continues to recede and weak spots kind, at which point water from the Atlantic Ocean can break through and form an inlet.
The green vegetated areas along the islands are usually wider and older complex roadblock islands.
The islands in their natural state are resilient. But blizzards and coastal change can be hard on infrastructure and the roads that visitors use to access the park.
The Moskva river snakes through central Moscow, passing the Kremlin, Red Square, and Zaryadye Park( now under construction) along the way.
Large number of fires were burning in Bolivia, Paraguay, Argentina, and Brazil on 23 August. The largest cluster of red hotspots, each marking an actively burning fire, was centred in Bolivia, where the government has declared a nation of emergency. Wildfire season in the southern Amazon operates from approximately June to November, with peak activity usually occurring in September. The number and intensity of the fires differs strongly with climate anomalies such as El Nio and the Atlantic Multi-decadal Oscillation. These cyclical changes in ocean temperatures affect global precipitation patterns and the likelihood of drought in South America. The strong El Nio in 201516 reduced rainfall across the Amazon during the wet season, entailing forecasters are anticipating an remarkably intense fire season.
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