Dust lingered over the Black Sea on October 14, 2009, in the wake of a strong dust storm that started the previous day. The low dusty layer of air fills the valleys of the mountains that line the Black Sea, the Anadolu Daglari, leaving the dark green peaks clear. The dust serves to highlight the valleys in Turkey. Another sign that the dust is relatively low in the atmosphere is the brilliant white clouds in the center and right side of the image. The clouds are white, not colored by dust above them, and they cast shadows on the dusty layer of air beneath them.
It is not clear from this image where the dust originated. The large image shows that the dust storm swept over a wide region from the Black Sea in the west to the Caspian Sea in the east. From south to north, the dust extends several hundred kilometers from the southern Caspian Sea, near Iran, into Russia.
The large image provided above is at MODIS’ maximum resolution of 250 meters per pixel. The MODIS Rapid Response System provides the image in additional resolutions.
NASA Earth Observatory images courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Holli Riebeek.
