Dust off Tunisia and Libya

 

Dust blew off the coasts of Tunisia and Libya in late November 2010, creating camel-colored plumes over the Mediterranean Sea. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this natural-color image on November 28, 2010.

Sand seas cover much of Algeria, Tunisia, and Libya, and some of those sand seas stretch all the way to the coast. The plumes blowing toward the northeast appear to have arisen from sediments near the shoreline. Although dust partially obscures the coastline along the Tunisia-Libya border, skies over Tripoli (also known as Tarabulus) are clear.

NASA images courtesy Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team at NASA GSFC. Caption by Michon Scott.

Instrument: Aqua - MODIS

 

 

acquired November 28, 2010 download large image (1 MB, JPEG)

acquired November 28, 2010 download GeoTIFF file (29 MB, TIFF)

acquired November 28, 2010 download Google Earth file (KMZ)

 

earthobservatory.nasa.gov