Haze over Eastern China

Haze over Eastern China

Haze continued to cloud the skies over eastern China in early November 2010. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image on November 4. Haze fringes an east-west cloudbank that ends at Shanghai, and extends northward past the city of Yancheng. A thick band also appears in the west (image left), and differs from the nearby clouds in its darker color and less distinct margins. South of the cloudbank, hills and ridges poke through the haze hanging over low-lying areas such as Hengyang (or Hengnan).

The haze over China in late October and early November likely resulted from a combination of agricultural fires and urban and industrial pollution. A band of haze blew off the coast and over the East China Sea.

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