Thick haze clouded the skies over Pakistan on December 20, 2006, when the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image. Several of Pakistan’s largest cities, including Lahore and Islamabad, are sandwiched between the Indus River and the Indian border in the area shown in this image. Cars burning low-quality fuel pump out pollutants in these densely populated regions, making air pollution a serious problem, reports the Energy Information Administration, a part of the United States Department of Energy. As this image shows, geography compounds the problem. Grey, pollution-laden air concentrates at the foot of the Himalaya Mountains. This polluted air will eventually blow east over India and dissipate over the Bay of Bengal. For daily images of Pakistan, please visit the MODIS Rapid Response web site.
NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC.
