Haze over China

Haze over China

Haze mingled with clouds in the skies over eastern China on March 20, 2007. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) flying onboard NASA’s Aqua satellite took this picture the same day. In this image, opaque white clouds and dingy gray haze obscure the view of the land surface while thick brown sediment clouds the shoreline of the Yellow Sea.

At least some of the haze results from pollution as China rapidly industrializes. Ubiquitous settlements in China appear in this image as tiny beige dots in a sea of green vegetation, especially near the Yellow Sea.

NASA image courtesy the MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. The Rapid Response Team provides daily images of this region.