Group for Earth Observation

No 64 - December 2019

Smoke plumes from bush fires in New South Wales, Australia were imaged by the NOAA-NASA Suomi NPP satellite on November 8, 2019
Image: NASA

Useful User Groups

GEO MANAGEMENT TEAM
Director and Public Relations

Weather Satellite Reports

Francis Bell,

This group provided weekly reports, updates and news
on the operational aspects of weather satellites.

Coturnix House, Rake Lane,
Milford, Godalming, Surrey GU8 5AB,
England.
Tel:

01483 416 897

email: francis@geo-web.org.uk

https://groups.io/g/weather-satellite-reports
SatSignal
This end-user self help group is for users of David
Taylor’s Satellite Software Tools, including the orbit
predictor WXtrack, the file decoders GeoSatSignal and
SatSignal, the HRPT Reader program, the remapper
GroundMap, and the manager programs - MSG DataManager, GOES-ABI Manager, AVHRR Manager etc.

https://groups.io/g/SatSignal
General Information
John Tellick,MSG-1

email: information@geo-web.org.uk

This forum provides a dedicated area for sharing
information about hardware and software for receiving
and processing EUMETCast data.

https://groups.io/g/MSG-1

GEO Newsletter Editor
Les Hamilton,
email: geoeditor@geo-web.org.uk

Technical Consultant (Hardware)David Simmons

GEO-Subscribers
This is the official group is for subscribers of the Groupfor Earth Observation (GEO), aimed at enthusiasts
wishing to exchange information relating to either GEO
or Earth Observation satellites.

https://groups.io/g/GEO-Subscribers/

email: tech@geo-web.org.uk

Webmaster and Website Matters
Alan Banks,e-mail: webmaster@geo-web.org.uk

Management TeamDavid Anderson
Rob Denton
Nigel Evans
Clive Finnis
Carol FinnisPeter GreenDavid SimmonsDavid Taylor

www.geo-web.org.uk

2

Les Hamilton

S

ince the September Newsletter, GEO’s Internet Forum has left YAHOO Groups
and moved to a new provider, Groups IO. All members of the forum, and all
previous posts, have been transferred to our new Group, which you can access at
the following URL
https://groups.io/g/GEO-Subscribers/

The most recent posts are available athttps://groups.io/g/GEO-Subscribers/topics

Groups.IO operates similarly to Yahoo Groups but offers several new features
which you are encouraged to explore from its website. In particular, images anddocuments can now be incorporated directly in posts as attachments, a featurethat has already proved popular with contributors.

On page 7 Francis Bell explains plans for a new visit to EUMETSAT during July
2020. A hoped-for visit in 2019 failed to take off, much to the disappointmentof many interested parties who had failed to register their interest. We at GEO
have to shoulder the blame for this: because we did not stipulate a closing date
for registrations it was decided that the numbers involved were insufﬁcient fora viable visit. The 2020 visit is being organised by Werkgroep Kunstmanen,
GEO’s sister organisation in The Netherlands, and GEO members are welcome toparticipate.

It does take time to organise a programme of events with EUMETSAT and ESOC,
so we are stipulating that, if you wish to participate, UK readers should inform
Francis Bell by March 31, 2020 at the latest (and preferably sooner if practical).
GEO will then liaise with Werkgroep Kunstmanen in making ﬁnal arrangements.

Please remember that contributions from readers detailing their activities arealways welcome, by email, to the editor at
geoeditor@geo-web.org.uk
Contents
GEO Report and Quarterly Question
Darmstadt Visit 2020
Dust Storm in southern Africa
Lake St Clair
Rifting and Calving on the Amery Ice Shelf
Sentinel-1 Images the Amery Calving Event
A Pulse of Water for Lake Powell
Meteor M2-2 shows Australian Bush Fires
2019 Ozone Hole the smallest on Record
Lake Balaton, Hungary
Early Season Fires in New South Wales
Typhoon Hagbis Floods Japan
Satellite Status

Francis Bell
Francis Bell
NASA Earth Observatory
European Space Agency
NASA Earth Observatory
European Space Agency
NASA Earth Observatory
Chris van Lindt
European Space Agency
NASA Earth Observatory

www.geo-web.org.uk

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Francis BellWhen GEO was first established in November
2003, the decision was made to operate within the
structure of a UK Limited Company. The reason forthis was that some of our planned activities sucha selling electronic equipment, could, in extreme
cases involve safety issues: hence the umbrella ofa company to take responsibility rather than an
individual was judged a sensible approach. I havejust renewed GEO as a limited company even thoughcurrently our turnover of equipment is close to
zero. With an existing company structure in place
it seems appropriate to continue with this structure
for the time being. The renewal fee to Companies
House is only £13 a year. As a consequence of thisdecision I will have to submit to Companies House
our annual accounts for 2019. However, because of
our recent much reduced financial turnover, I will
do the accounting myself, hence there will be no
charge to GEO when submitting these accounts. I
will try to publish the accounts in the next Quarterly
Newsletter. A statement of our current position isthat we have about £8,600 in the bank with only
very small commitments in the coming year.
One suggestion that has been made to me is that
we use some of our bank balance to subsidise a
GEO visit to EUMETSAT and ESOC in Darmstadt

next year. No decision has been made but it would
be interesting to receive feedback relating to thissuggestion. Responses by email, please, tofrancis@geo-web.org.uk
It has been very encouraging to learn about thedevelopments at Dundee. The University of Dundee
has for many years received public funding for theirweather satellite project, enabling public accessto their ever growing catalogue of satellite images.
However, my understanding is that the publicfunding via NERC has been withdrawn, hence
Dundee University has had to close their original
project which has now been adopted by a voluntarygroup, but still using some of the establishedequipment on a new site in Errol, just west of
Dundee.
The photograph below shows some of the equipment
being transferred. A new company has been
established called Dundee Satellite Station Ltd.,
which is currently looking after the equipment andprogressing the necessary planning consent and
OfCom licence for the new site. I think it’s great thatthe Dundee project is to continue and I offer mycongratulations to all those involved in this extended
project.

Some of the Dundee University satellite project equipment being dismantled ready for removal to the new site at Errol.
Photo: Dundee University

www.geo-web.org.uk

4

Francis BellMy thanks to those readers who responded to Quarterly
Question 63 and for their supportive comments regarding
the interest they have in our regular Earth observationquestion. The answer to the question, which was to namethe island shown in the satellite image, was ‘Gran Canaria’.
The text of the question did say it was an island in the
Canaries group but the issue was to identify the individual
island. The shape of the island was a specific clue
because other islands in the group have irregular shapes
whereas Gran Canaria is almost round in coastal outline,
just as you might expect from a volcano pushing out of the
deep ocean floor.
The answer to the additional question about the name ofthis island group is explained in the following extract from
Wikipedia, the point being that the islands have nothing to
do with canaries but are more related to dogs.
The name Islas Canarias is probably derived from theLatin name Canariae Insulae, meaning ‘Islands of the
Dogs’, a tern that was applied only to Gran Canaria.
According to historian Pliny the Elder, the Mauretanianking Juba II named the island Canaria because it

contained ‘vast multitudes of dogs of very large size’.
Alternatively, it is said that the original inhabitantsof the island, Guanches, used to worship dogs,
mummifying them and treating them as holy animals.
Some hypothesise that this dog-worship was closely
connected with the ancient Egyptian cult of the dogheaded god Anubis. Other theories speculate that thename comes from the Nukkari Berber tribe living in the
Moroccan Atlas, named in Roman sources as Canarii.
The connection to dogs is retained in their depiction on the
Canary Islands’ coat-of-arms.
It is considered that the aboriginals of Gran Canaria called
themselves ‘Canarios’. It is possible that ,after being
conquered, this name was pluralised in Spanish to refer toall of the islands as the Canarii-as.
What is certain is that the name of the islands does notderive from the canary bird; rather, the birds are named
after the islands.

The Quarterly Question image of an island located in the Persian Gulf.
Copernicus Sentinel data (2015)/ESA, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO licence

www.geo-web.org.uk

continued overleaf ...

5

Quarterly Question 64
The Quarterly Question this time is based on the image
shown on page 5. The question is straight forward: ‘Name
the island shown in the right-hand half of the image’.
The orientation of the image is geographically conventionalwith north at the top: and for scale, the island stretches
about 40 kilometres from north to south.
My interest in this island was generated by my casualresearches into the exact location of the country of Qatar.
In October 2019, the world Athletic Championships were
held in Qatar, and although I knew approximately thelocation of the country I thought I would look up some of
my archived satellite images of the area and perhaps even
identify the athletics stadium where the championships
were being held.
During this search I came across this image—with Qatar
just outside the frame to the east—but showing an
adjacent island in the Persian Gulf on which I had set foota number of times! My times on this island were brief as
it was just a short stop-over for aircraft refuelling during
flights from the UK to Goa, India (which nowadays can bedone nonstop). I never stayed on the island to experienceits popular holiday water-related accommodation which

can be seen as small horseshoe arcs at the bottom right of
the island image.
Just to confirm the question: Name the island (country)
shown in the satellite image. The island is located in the
Persian Gulf with the state of Qatar not far away.
Postscript.
The island has been in the news recently on BBC TV
because of the strategic importance of a UK naval base
there, with the navy currently patrolling the international
shipping lanes in the Persian Gulf because of the current
oil disputes.
Answers tofrancis@geo-web.org.uk
or tofrancis@francisbell.com
by February 25, 2010.
Extra
Purely as a matter of interest, a close-up segment fromthe above ESA Copernicus image, showing the horseshoe
arcs referred to above, is reproduced below.

TahitiThis image from the EU Copernicus
Sentinel-2 mission pictures the Pacificisland of Tahiti in French Polynesia.
Made up of two ancient volcanic cones,
Tahiti Nui and Tahiti Iti, connected by
the Isthmus of Taravao, it is surroundedby coral reefs and is home to French
Polynesia’s capital, Papeete.

www.geo-web.org.uk

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Darmstadt Visit 2020
Francis BellIn collaboration with our Dutch friends, Werkgroep
Kunstmanen, it is intended to organise a
combined visit of both GEO and Werkgroep
members to the headquarters of EUMETSAT and
ESOC, both located in Darmstadt, Germany. The
dates agreed for this venture are the 2nd and 3rdJuly, 2020.
At the time of writing this notice, no specificagenda for the visit has been fixed but, if it’ssimilar to our previous events, it will consist of avisit to each of the Headquarter buildings, which
will include some local staff presentations on
topics relevant to our amateur user groups. We
may even have the chance to ask about technicalissues, which would be useful information relating
to EUMETSAT’s and ESA’s future plans.
The current expectation is to spend the first fullday, July 2, visiting EUMETSAT HQ, then halfof the following day at ESOC. Visits to otherestablishments have not been fixed but may bepossible; realistic suggestions would be welcome.
Perhaps we can use any spare time for our own
GEO and Werkgroep Kunstmanen presentations
and business.

The EUMETSAT Headquarters Building
Photo: Rob Alblas

The above visits are mainly free of charge
but there may be minor costs for making local
arrangements. But the cost to an individual should
not be more than 10 or 20 euros. However,
all travel and accommodation costs are theresponsibility of the individual member.
In order to confirm the above arrangements andmake it worthwhile, I consider that we need agroup size of about 20 (or more) from the UK. If
you are interested in taking part in this visit as amember of the GEO contingent, please register
your interest via a brief email tofrancis@francisbell.com

Delegates pictured outside EUMETSAT’s Darmstadt HQ in July 2015.
Photo: David Taylor

no later than March 31, 2020, and you will besent information about hotels in Darmstadt where
our group could be staying for one or two nights.
This will enable me to liaise with Werkgroep
Kunstmanen, who are the prime movers in thisventure.
Note that a registration at this stage is not a
total commitment on your part but will give theorganisers an idea of the scale of the event.
As soon as our group size reaches about 20 ormore we can be more specific about wishes in ourconsultations with EUMETSAT and ESOC.

Antennas at Usingen
Photo: Ruud Jansen

Stop Press: A draft Agenda
for July 2 at EUMETSAT HQ appears on page 8
www.geo-web.org.uk

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www.geo-web.org.uk

8

Dust Storm in Southern Africa
NASA Earth Observatory

the NOAA-NASA Suomi NPP satellite imaged this dust plume on September 25, 2019.

People in coastal towns along the west coastof southern Africa watched skies turn red on
September 25, 2019. A fierce wind picked up andcarried huge plumes of sand and dust westward
toward the Atlantic Ocean.
The plumes were observed that day at 12:25 UT
by the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite(VIIRS) on the NOAA-NASA Suomi NPP satellite.
The event covered a wide area north and south of
the Orange River, which forms part of the border
between Namibia and South Africa.
The South African Weather Service reported thatthe winds lofted enough particles into the air
to produce moderate to poor visibility. Indeed,photographs from people in Alexander Bay show
dark, hazy skies and streets that are barely visible.

According to news reports, aircraft were unable toland at nearby airports.
The amount of dust lofted from land in theSouthern Hemisphere is negligible compared withthat of the Northern Hemisphere. Africa’s Sahara
Desert, for example, is one of the world’s major
dust sources. Still, when winds blow over dry areasof the Southern Hemisphere, dust storms can befierce. A similar scene unfolded in October 2018,
when a thick, narrow plume streamed from thesame area.
NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren
Dauphin, using VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS/LANCE and GIBS/Worldview, and the Suomi
National Polar-orbiting Partnership.

www.geo-web.org.uk

Story by Kathryn Hansen.

9Lake St. Clair
European Space Agency

Lake St Clair, imaged by Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission on March 26, 2019.
© Copernicus Sentinel data (2019), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission
takes us over Lake St Clair, forming
the border between Ontario, Canada
to the east, and Michigan, US to thewest.
The Saint Clair River is visible atthe top of the image and flows
southwards, connecting thesouthern end of Lake Huron withLake St. Clair, visible in the centre of
the image. The river branches into
several channels before reaching
the lake, creating a seven-mouthdelta. Much of the area surrounding
the delta is used for agriculture.
The Thames River, visible eastof the lake, begins in a swampy
area of Ontario before emptying its

muddy waters into Lake St. Clair.
Here the murky-coloured waters mix
with the turquoise waters from theSaint Clair River, creating the fusionof colour visible in the heart-shapedlake. The waters then exit the lake
via the Detroit River.
Lake St Clair is approximately 40
kilometres long and 40 km wide,with an average depth of aroundthree metres. The lake is a popularsite for fishing and boating and morethan 100 species of fish inhabit thelake, including walleye, rainbow
trout and muskellunge.
Detroit, the largest city in Michigan,
is visible directly above the Detroit
River. The city lies on a relatively flat

www.geo-web.org.uk

plain and the extensive network ofroads in the city are clearly visible in
the image.
Detroit is nicknamed the ‘Motor
City’, as it was the key hub for
American auto-manufacturing forover a century. It was also home tothe first mile of concrete highway,
the first four-way three-colour traffic
light and the world’s first urban
freeway.
In this wintery image, captured on
March 26, 2019, many of the frozen
lakes northwest of Lake St Claircan be seen partially frozen over.
The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission
allows inland bodies of water to beclosely monitored.

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On September 26, 2019, this northbound pass of Meteor M2-2 was interrupted by the transmission of a ‘Test Card’ image.
Thanks to Enrico Gobbetti for forwarding this unusual image.

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11

Rifting and Calving on the Amery Ice Shelf
NASA Earth Observatory
Story by Kathryn Hansen.

The last time a major iceberg calved from East
Antarctica’s Amery Ice Shelf, there were no satellites
poised to document the event. Scientists in the
1960s relied on aircraft, ships and land-based
studies to survey the ice shelf and its progeny.
Now, more than half a century later, satellites havecaptured riveting space-based views as another huge‘berg has broken away from the shelf.
The images opposite, acquired by the Moderate
Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS)
instruments on NASA’s Aqua and Terra satellites,
show the iceberg on three relatively cloud-free days
during September 2019. The iceberg, named D-28,
measures 1636 square kilometres, about the same
area spanned by the city of Houston.
For ice shelves and glaciers that reach the ocean,calving is part of the natural cycle of advance andretreat. Compared to melting, the fastest way for
glaciers to lose mass to the ocean is through rifting
and the subsequent calving of icebergs. But there
are still plenty of unknowns about how ice shelves
and icebergs work. How do factors like waves, winds,
melting from the shelf’s underside, and even the
structure of the ice, contribute to a calving event?

Figure 1 - September 13, and a thin crack across the ice betrays theimminent calving of D28

Scientists working to answer these questions face abasic challenge: calving events are hard to observe.
They happen infrequently and in remote locations.
And if you try to make observations from the surface,
there’s the hazard of getting too close to an eventwith such explosive energy.
NASA snow and ice scientist Catherine Walker, andcolleagues Helen Fricker (Scripps/UCSD) and Jeremy
Bassis (University of Michigan), have taken anotherapproach. They use satellite data to study the large
systems of rifts that propagate across ice shelves asa precursor to calving. Over the past 20 years, rifts
at Amery have been the most active—growing fasterand more continuously than any other ice shelfaround Antarctica.

Figure 2 - September 23, with D23 already free from the ice shelf

Walker, Fricker, and Bassis originally focused on anarea of ice called the ‘loose tooth’. You can see thissegment in figure 1; it appears to have a tenuous
connection to the shelf, given its location between
two large rifts. But the scientists eventually moved
their attention west of the ‘loose tooth’, where oneof the rifts had picked up speed. They described
their findings in a 2015 paper in the Journal of
Glaciology.
“So, we thought, maybe this side will go first,”
Walker said, which is exactly what happened... concluded on page 13

Figure 3 - September 30, with D23 now well clear of the ice shelf
NASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin, using MODIS datafrom NASA EOSDIS/LANCE and GIBS/Worldview.

www.geo-web.org.uk

12when D-28 broke away. “It’s still quite surprising
how fast it went, though; the three of us have been
looking at it often—most recently in April 2019—
and we didn’t foresee that it would be gone by
October.”
The latest calving event provides more observations
for the researchers to study. Analysis of D-28,
combined with continued monitoring of the rifts,
could help them better understand the factors

leading to the creation of new icebergs, as well as
what happens afterwards.
‘East Antarctica is a place often thought to bepretty stable and less affected by warming ocean
and atmosphere trends,” Walker said. “It will beinteresting to compare calving events and see what
this latest event tells us, and how that might be
informative of what’s starting to happen in East
Antarctica.’

Sentinel-1 Images the Amery Calving Event
European Space Agency
The huge iceberg, dubbed D28, that broke off the
Amery Ice Shelf in Antarctica, has an area of around1600 square kilometres—about the size of Greater
London. Approximately 30 km wide and 60 km long,
it is estimated to weigh over 300 billion tonnes.
Captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-1 mission,
the radar image below shows the scene after the

berg broke away. It is estimated to have calved fromthe Amery Ice Shelf between September 22 and25. Scientists state that this is the biggest calvingfrom the Amery Ice Shelf in 50 years. Satellites willcontinue to monitor and track the iceberg, as it
poses a threat for ships in the vicinity.

www.geo-web.org.uk

Copyright ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

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A Pulse of Water for Lake PowellNASA Earth Observatory
Story by Michael Carlowicz.

Heavy snowfall in the Rocky Mountains during
winter and spring 2019 provided a muchneeded pulse of meltwater into Lake Powell,
the second largest reservoir (by maximum
water capacity) in the United States. Still,
the effects of long-term droughts and rising
air temperatures, combined with increasing
demands for water in the American Southwest,
mean that the lake is still nowhere near its
highs from the 1980s and 90s.
Lake Powell stretches across southeastern
Utah and northeastern Arizona. Water
managers first started filling the reservoir
in 1963 when the Glen Canyon Dam wascompleted along the Colorado River. By
the mid-1980s, the lake approached its full
capacity. Water levels dropped due to drought
and then rose again in the late 1990s. Lakelevels have been mostly dropping over the past
20 years, punctuated by a few strong water
years like 2019.

Figure 1 - Lake Powell on April 20, 2012

Figure 1, acquired by the Thematic Mapper on
the Landsat 5 satellite on April 20, 2012, whenthen lake was near its highest spring level
since 2000 following abundant of precipitationin 2011. Figure 2 was acquired by the
Operational Land Imager on Landsat 8 on May
2, 2019. A second Landsat 8 image dating from
August 31, 2019, shows the lake near its peaklevel for this year.
As of September 29, 2019, the water elevationlevel at Glen Canyon Dam was 3615.49 feet,and the lake stored 13.29 million acre-feet(maf) of water, about 55% of capacity but
more than 100 feet below ‘full pool’. On May 1,
2019, before the abundant snow cover started
melting, the lake stood at 3584.65 feet andheld 10.34 million acre-feet of water. In May
2012 (comparison image), Lake Powell stoodat 3636.83 feet and held 15.63 maf. (One acrefoot equals about 326,000 gallons.)
Snow arrived late in the 2018-19 winter, butwhen it did, it was heavy and frequent. Spring
temperatures in the Rocky Mountains remainedcooler than normal, keeping snow cover frommelting quickly. A major snowfall in late Junein Colorado raised snow water equivalents—a
measure of the amount of water in thesnowpack on the mountains—to 40 times theJune norm in the state. The Upper Colorado
River basin as a whole reached snow waterequivalent levels about 130% of the long-term
median.

Figure 2 - Lake Powell on May 2, 2019

Figure 3 - Lake Powell on August 31, 2019www.geo-web.org.uk

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The abundance of snow in 2019 ended a severe droughtthat kept water flows into the river at 43% of normal in
2018. According to the US Bureau of Reclamation (USBR),
which manages Lake Powell, ‘the total water year 2019
unregulated inflow to Lake Powell is projected to be 13.19
million acre-feet (122% of average).’
January 1999 - August 2019
The boom in 2019 will help to stabilise water storage in thelake. However, it will take several more years of abundantsnow and rain to offset the steady decline since 1999, asshown in the graph above. Lake Powell was around 94%
capacity in 2000. It sank to an all-time low in 2005.
USBR reported in September 2019:‘During the 19-year period 2000 to 2018, theunregulated inflow to Lake Powell, which is a goodmeasure of hydrologic conditions in the Colorado
River Basin, was above average in only four out ofthe past 19 years. The period 2000-2018 is the lowest

19-year period since the closure of Glen Canyon
Dam in 1963, with an average unregulated inflow of
8.54 maf, or 79% of the 30-year average (1981-2010).
(For comparison, the 1981-2010 total water year
average is 10.83 maf.)’
A century of river flow records and several centuries oftree-ring data show that there is some precedent for thedry years of the past few decades: extended droughts
have been part of the long-term climate variability of theAmerican Southwest. However, global warming is expected
to make droughts more severe. For a long view, see theEarth Observatory feature ‘World of Change: Water Levelin Lake Powell’, which documents changes in lake levels
each spring since 1999 at this URL
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/
world-of-change/LakePowellNASA Earth Observatory images by Lauren Dauphin and Joshua
Stevens, using Landsat data from the U.S. Geological Survey and water
storage data from the Bureau of Reclamation.

Meteor M2-2 shows
Australian Bushfires
Chris van Lindt
I took this image from Meteor M2-2
on November 11, which clearlyshows the smoke plumes arisingfrom the bush fires in Northern New
South Wales/Southern Queensland.
Here in Brisbane we can also clearly
see the smoke haze and even thesmell of the fire.
The smoke trail is drifting hundredsof kilometres to the East andaccording to reports, it can be seenfrom New Zealand!

www.geo-web.org.uk

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2019 Ozone Hole is the Smallest on Record
NASA Earth Observatory
Story by Ellen Gray, NASA Earth Science News Team.

Abnormal weather patterns in theupper atmosphere over Antarctica
dramatically limited ozone depletionin September and October 2019,
resulting in the smallest ozone
hole since 1982, NASA and NOAA
scientists reported.
The annual ozone hole reached its
peak extent of 16.4 million square
kilometres on September 8, 2019,
and then shrank to less than 10
million km2 for the remainder of
September and October. During
years with normal weather conditions,the ozone hole typically grows to a
maximum area of about 20 km2.
“It’s great news for ozone in theSouthern Hemisphere,” said
Paul Newman, chief scientist
for Earth Sciences at NASA’s
Goddard Space Flight Center.
“But it’s important to recognizethat what we’re seeing this year
is due to warmer stratospherictemperatures. It’s not a sign that
atmospheric ozone is suddenly ona fast track to recovery.”NASA and NOAA monitor the ozone
hole via complementary instrumental
methods. NASA’s Aura satellite, theNASA-NOAA Suomi NPP satellite,
and NOAA’s JPSS NOAA-20 satellite
all measure ozone from space.
Aura’s Microwave Limb Sounder also
estimates levels of ozone-destroying
chlorine.
At the South Pole, NOAA staff launchweather balloons carrying ozonemeasuring sondes, which directly
sample ozone levels vertically throughthe atmosphere. Most years, at least
some levels of the stratosphere arefound to be completely devoid ofozone.
“This year, ozonesondemeasurements at the South
Pole did not show any portionsof the atmosphere where ozone
was completely depleted,” said
atmospheric scientist Bryan
Johnson at NOAA’s Earth System
Research Laboratory.

The Ozone Hole on September 8, 2019NASA Earth Observatory image by Joshua Stevens, using data courtesy of NASA Ozone Watch

This is the third time in the past forty
years that weather systems havecaused warm temperatures that
limit ozone depletion, stated NASA
Goddard atmospheric scientist Susan
Strahan. Similar weather patterns in
the Antarctic stratosphere produced
small ozone holes in September 1988
and 2002.
“It’s a rare event that we’restill trying to understand,” said
Strahan. “If the warming hadn’t
happened, we’d likely be looking
at a much more typical ozone
hole.”
There is no identified connection
between the occurrence of theseunique patterns and changes inclimate.

altitude of about 20 kilometres,
temperatures during September 2019were 16 degrees Celsius warmer than
average—the warmest in the 40-year
historical record for September bya wide margin. In addition, theseweather systems weakened theAntarctic polar vortex, knocking it off
its normal centre over the South Poleand reducing the strong September jet
stream around Antarctica from a mean
speed of 260 kilometres per hour to a
speed of 110 kilometres. This slowing
vortex rotation allowed air to sink in
the lower stratosphere, where it had
two impacts.

This YouTube video illustrates
how the ozone hole has
reduced in recent years
https://youtu.be/6BUT16jfoKk

The sinking air warmed the Antarctic
lower stratosphere, minimizing theformation and persistence of polar
stratospheric clouds, a main ingredientfor the ozone-destroying process.
Second, the strong weather systems
brought ozone-rich air from elsewherein the Southern Hemisphere to thearea above the Antarctic ozone hole.

The weather systems that disrupted
the 2019 ozone hole are typicallymodest in September, but this year
they were unusually strong. At an

As of mid October, the ozone hole
has remained small but stable. It is
expected to gradually dissipate in the
coming weeks.

www.geo-web.org.uk

16

The recent flurry of activity relating to Meteor M2-2 prompted Chris van Lint to get his QFH out of mothballs
and give it a clean. This image, acquired on September 27, 2019, includes the entire eastern part of Australia,
with Papua New Guinea to the north, albeit in cloud, and South Island of New Zealand at lower right.

www.geo-web.org.uk

17

Lake Balaton, Hungary
European Space Agency

The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us overLake Balaton in western Hungary. With a surface
area of around 600 square kilometres and a lengthof around 78 kilometres, this freshwater lake is thelargest in central Europe.
The lake is fed mainly by the Zala River at its
western end. The lake water flows out near theeastern end via an artificial channel called the Sió,which eventually feeds into the River Danube.

The lake supports a large population of plant andanimal species. During migration and wintering
sessions, the site is an important staging area forthousands of ducks and geese.
Owing to its pleasant climate and fresh water, theLake Balaton area is a popular tourist destination.
The mountainous northern region is known for its
wine, while popular tourist towns lie on the flatter
southern shore.

Originally five separate water bodies, the barriers
between have been eroded away to create the lake
as it is today. Remnants of the dividing ridges
can be seen in Balaton’s shape—with the TihanyPeninsula on the northern shore narrowing thewidth of the lake to approximately 1.5 kilometres.

Sentinel-2 is a two-satellite mission to supply thecoverage and data delivery needed for Europe’s
Copernicus programme. The mission’s frequent revisits
over the same area and high spatial resolution allowchanges in inland water bodies to be closely monitored.

Lake Balaton’s striking emerald-green colour in thisimage is most likely due to its shallow waters andchemical composition. It is heavy in carbonates andsulphates, and there are also around 2000 speciesof algae that grow in its waters.

Copyright contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data
(2019), processed by ESA
Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 IGO
Licensewww.geo-web.org.uk

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Early Season Fires Burning in New South Wales
NASA Earth Observatory
Story by Kathryn Hansen.

In November 2019, destructive
bushfires raged near the coastof New South Wales, Australia,
sending smoke billowing
over the Tasman Sea. The
Moderate Resolution Imaging
Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on
NASA’s Aqua satellite acquired
this image of the smoke plumes
on November 7, 2019.
Fires that day burned from northof Sydney to near the borderwith Queensland with thicksmoke blowing southeast over the
Tasman Sea. According to the New
South Wales Rural Fire Service, 29of the 69 fires burning across thestate remained uncontrolled.
Bushfire season in New South
Wales typically runs from Octoberthrough March. Just one month
into the 2019 season, news
reports state that the amountof burned area has alreadysurpassed that of the past two
years combined.
The spate of fires is visible in ourfront cover image, acquired at
2:30 pm local time on November
8, 2019, by the Visible Infrared
Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS)
on the NOAA-NASA Suomi NPP
satellite.
Three hours after the Suomi‑NPP
image was acquired, the New
South Wales Rural Fire Service
reported 96 fires burning acrossthe state with 57 remaining
uncontained. Seventeen of thesewere emergency-level fires (thehighest alert level for a bushfire).
According to news reports, that’s
the highest number of emergencylevel fires the state has seen
burning at one time.
Amid the burning, citizens ofcoastal cities watched their skies
turn orange-red and air quality
was degraded. In Port Macquarie,
the air quality index (a scale thatindicates pollution levels) was

well into the hazardous category.
That’s the level at which everyone
is at risk for the pollution to affecttheir health.
Burning bans have been put
in place in some areas amid
forecasts for continued severe
fire weather—warm temperaturespaired with strong winds. The

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region also has been drier thanusual; the lack of rainfall in New
South Wales led to one of fivedriest January-October periods onrecord.

NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren
Dauphin, using VIIRS data from NASA EOSDIS/LANCE and GIBS/Worldview, and the Suomi
National Polar-orbiting Partnership.

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Typhoon Hagibis
Floods Japan
After forming in the Philippine Sea
and rapidly intensifying into a powerful
category 5 storm on October 5, 2019,super typhoon Hagibis gradually
weakened as it approached Japan. Yet
when, as a category 2 storm, Hagbis’
made landfall on the Izu Peninsula on
October 12, its broad wind field andrecord-breaking rain devastated theisland of Honshu. The storm caused
widespread flooding, mudslides, power
outages, and wind damage.
The image opposite was captured on
October 10, 2019 by ESA’s Copernicus
Sentinel-3 mission at a time when
it was comparable in strength to acategory‑5 hurricane, and exhibited aneye 60 kilometres across.
While typhoons regularly hit Japan,
meteorologists say Hagibis wasparticularly damaging because of theangle of its attack and where it madelandfall. Storms usually strike southern
Japan first and weaken rapidly by
the time they reach Tokyo and otherpopulation centres in central Honshu.
In this case, the storm stayed offshore
until making landfall just 130 kilometres
southwest of Tokyo.
That allowed Hagibis to draw energy
from the sea longer than most storms
do. When it made landfall, the storm
was also interacting with higher levelwinds in the jet stream, which spreadthe strongest winds over a larger area
than usual.
According to press reports, Hagibis
caused dozens of deaths, hundreds of
injuries, flood damage to at least
10,000 homes, and power outages inmany more. River embankments
collapsed in at least 66 places on 47
different rivers and streams. One of theareas hardest hit by rain was Hakone,which received 922.5 millimetres of rain
fall in just one day.
Text abridged from a NASA Earth
Observatory report by Adam Voiland.
https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/
images/145736/hagibis-floods-japan

Typhoon Hagibis imaged heading towards Japan on October 10, 2019.
© Copernicus Sentinel data (2019), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO

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As the northern hemisphere days shorten around the end of the year, the production ofcolour composite images from Russia’s Meteor satellites provides less and less detail.
Now is therefore the time to concentrate on the infrared images that both satellites are now
transmitting on Channel-5, particularly when the land temperature plummets below freezing.
Joachim Scharrer sent in this Meteor M2 IR image he acquired on November 27, 2019, which
has captured Iceland almost completely free of cloud.

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