NASA satellite images capture the extreme climate events of 2020

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In addition to a deadly pandemic, 2020 also brought back memories of the severity of the climate crisis facing the world – drought, floods, heat waves, wildfires and hurricanes continued to disrupt the lives of communities around the world, alongside and despite the challenges posed by Covid-19 .

Images of some of these climate events – visually stunning and sobering in equal measure – were taken by NASA’s fleet of Earth observation satellites and instruments found at the International Space Station.

On this day last year, NASA’s Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer captured images of thick, tan smoke drifting across Southeast Australia, taken as the country was ravaged by one of the worst wildfire seasons on record.

Australia’s fire season is always dangerous – but conditions were unusually harsh in 2020, fueling the flames and making firefighting particularly difficult.

Experts say climate change has exacerbated the magnitude and impact of natural disasters such as fires and floods – weather conditions are becoming more extreme, and for years fires have started earlier in the season and spread with greater intensity.

This natural-color image of Southeast Australia was obtained on January 4, 2020 by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer on NASA's Aqua satellite.
2020 was also a year to remember for many residents of the US West Coast states, where deadly wildfires in California, Oregon and Washington forced tens of thousands of people to shelters amid the coronavirus pandemic.

In the image below, captured on September 9, a thick blanket of smoke can be seen along the west coast,

“Climate and fire scientists have long expected fires in the western US to become bigger, more intense, and more dangerous. But even the most experienced of them had no words to describe the size and intensity of the fires in the United States. West Coast states in September 2020, ”said NASA.

This image shows North America on September 9, 2020, as a thick blanket of smoke covered the west coast.

Several from this year Fires were caused by lightning, but extreme conditions, including record-breaking temperatures, dry air, high winds and drought, caused the fires to wreak havoc in nearby forests and eventually homes.

The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) and the Ozone Mapping and Profiler Suite (OMPS) sensors, found on the NOAA-NASA Suomi NPP satellite, daily collected images of thick plumes of aerosol particles blowing across the western US. which, according to NASA, was on a scale that satellites and scientists rarely see.

Drought

On July 3, 2020, the Operational Land Imager on Landsat 8 captured this false-color image of the river near Rosario, a major port city in Argentina.

While this photo appears to show a lush and green oasis, the photo captured by NASA’s Landsat actually reveals the parched basin of Argentina’s Paraná River.

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A prolonged period of unusually warm weather and drought in southern Brazil, Paraguay and northern Argentina caused the river to drop to its lowest level in decades. The drought has not only contributed to an increase in fire activity in the surrounding delta and floodplain, but has also affected local businesses and residents, with ships aground and low water levels costing millions of dollars in the grain industry.

Since the early 1900s, human activity has been linked to the risk of drought in the world: greenhouse gases generated by power plants, agriculture, cars, trains and human activities in general have affected drought risk, and experts predict that drought is linked to climate change will get worse.

Hurricanes

Hurricane Laura, one of the 10 strongest hurricanes to make landfall in the US, swept through southwestern Louisiana in August, killing at least six people and leaving a wide path of destruction.

The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season was the most active on record, and many of the storms that hit the Gulf Coast, Central America and the Caribbean last year showed signs that they were being driven by global warming.
The Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS) on NOAA-20 acquired this photo of Hurricane Laura on August 26, 2020 at 2:20 a.m. Central Daylight Time.

In the image above, captured by the VIIRS on the NOAA-20 satellite, the storm looms off the coast of the US, highlighted by the darkness of the night, as clouds are displayed in infrared using brightness temperature data and as an overlay on images with city lights.

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