Haze over the Yellow Sea

Haze over the Yellow Sea

A thick plume of haze blew off the coast of China, across the Yellow Sea, and toward the Korean Peninsula in early December 2008. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite took this picture on December 2, 2008. In this image, the gray haze is thick enough to obscure the satellite’s view of the South Korean coast. The haze appears thickest over South Korea and thins toward the north. Over North Korea, skies are largely clear. The haze likely results from a combination of agricultural fires and industrial and urban pollution.

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