Aerosols vary a great deal from place to place and over time. Knowing their type and distribution benefits people everywhere. The Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean Ecosystem (PACE) satellite mission will help capture a complete and accurate picture of aerosols around the globe.
The water body naturally formed by the rivers, the Aral Sea, was once the fourth largest lake in the world.
Changing the Landscape
In the 1960s, the Soviet Union undertook a major water project in the region. It changed the landscape in many unintended ways.
The project's goal was transforming the dry plains of Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan into farms for cotton and other crops.
They diverted water from the region’s two major rivers – Syr Darya and Amu Darya – cutting back the Aral Sea's supply.
Some Gain, Others Lose
Although irrigation made the desert bloom, the project had many unintended consequences.
To meet its demands for cotton, the Soviet Union poured more pesticides and fertilizers onto the land.
Polluted runoff had a bigger impact because of the Aral Sea's greatly diminished supply of fresh water.
Drastically lower water levels made the Aral Sea saltier and more toxic, so none of its fish species survived.
Blowing salty dust from the exposed lakebed – contaminated with agricultural chemicals – became a public health hazard.
Shrinking Sea, Growing Problem
The Aral Sea once covered about 26,000 square miles, a little bigger than the state of West Virginia. It is now only about 10% of the size it was in 1960.
A Disaster Diverted
Diverting water affected regional weather. How? The loss of the Aral Sea's moderating influence caused winters to be colder, summers to be hotter and drier, and stirred up dangerous dust storms.
In May 2007, a massive storm blew through central Asia, stirring up dust along the southern shores of the Aral Sea.
An April 2008 dust storm blew westward from the Aral Sea, crossing the border between Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan.
Dust blowing salt and agricultural chemicals is not the only problem for people living in the Aral Sea region.
When water vanished around Vozrozheniya Island, it exposed a Soviet germ-warfare facility for open-air testing of anthrax, plague, and smallpox.
Muynak (Uzbekistan) is home to a monument about the Aral Sea disaster, which experts believe displaced more than 100,000 people and has affected the health of over 5 million.
In the data model visualization below, red represents dust. The Saharan Desert of northern Africa is the largest source worldwide. However, dust can be seen across the globe including over the Aral Sea during April 2019.
PACE will extend and improve NASA's over 20-year record of observing ocean life, aerosols, and clouds.
PACE observations will allow us to continue and improve monitoring of health-relevant aerosols emitted by the Aral Sea and other dry lake beds worldwide.
More wavelengths. Unprecedented resolution.
Links and Other Information
- Blue Marble Next Generation Images from Terra/MODIS [NASA Scientific Visualization Studio]
- Gateway to Astronaut Photography of Earth [NASA Johnson Space Center]
- The Water is Wider [NASA Earth Observatory]
- The Aral Sea Crisis [Columbia University]
- Dust Storm over the South Aral Sea [NASA Earth Observatory]
- World of Change: Shrinking Aral Sea [NASA Earth Observatory]
- Dust Storm in Central Asia [NASA Earth Observatory]
- Dust Storm over the Aral Sea [NASA Earth Observatory]
- Abandoned Ship near Aral, Kazakhstan [Wikipedia]
- Earthshots: Satellite Images of Environmental Change [US Geological Survey]
- Aerosol Optical Thickness Updating Forecast [NASA Scientific Visualization Studio]
- Other images used under 123rf License Agreement [ID 81390389, 87909307, 102069396, 116803499, 116803523, 89505331, 12396433, 75280413]