Dust Plumes over the Arabian Sea

Dust Plumes over the Arabian Sea

Multiple dust plumes blew off the coasts of Iran and Pakistan and over the Arabian Sea in mid-November 2008. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image of the region on November 13, 2008. In this image, the dust plumes appear as translucent ribbons of beige fluttering over a navy blue ocean. As skies inland are clear, the plumes likely originate from sandy sediments along the coast.

NASA image courtesy MODIS Rapid Response, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center. Caption by Michon Scott.