Aerosols over the Appalachian Mountains

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Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer (MISR) acquired these views of the Appalachian Mountains on March 6, 2000. The image at left is a downward-looking (nadir) view of the eastern United States, stretching from Lake Ontario to northern Georgia. The next image to the right was taken by the forward 70.5-degree camera. At this increased slant angle, the line-of-sight through the atmosphere is three times longer, and a thin pall of haze over the Appalachians is significantly more apparent. These images are derived from MISR's Level 1B2 Georectified Radiance Ellipsoid Product.

MISR uses this enhanced sensitivity along with the angular variation in signal to monitor particulate pollution and to measure haze properties. The righthand panel is the result of applying a new approach to retrieving aerosol amount over land that was specially developed to take advantage of MISR's unique capability of providing moderately high spatial resolution, calibrated imagery at very oblique angles. Gradations from blue to red indicate increasing aerosol abundance, and the hazier areas correspond to optical depths typically on the order of 0.2. These data reveal how airborne particles are interacting with sunlight, a measure of their impact on Earth's climate system. The retrievals used to generate this image are from the MISR Level 2 Aerosol Preview Product for Terra orbit 1155.

Image Credit: NASA/GSFC/JPL, MISR Team