Gobi Desert Dust

Credit: NASA, Jeff Schmaltz, MODIS Rapid Response Team , Posted on: Tuesday, 24 March 2009, 07:25 CDT Download full size image

The yellow dust that hovered over the Beijing region and pushed out to sea in mid-March 2009 originated in the Gobi Desert. The MODIS on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image of the Gobi Desert dust plumes on March 14, 2009. In this true-color, photo-like image, two steams of dust appear, the northern plume skirting the Mongolian border. Both contrast slightly with the underlying arid ground surface.

Straddling the border between Mongolia and China, the Gobi Desert sports vast sand seas that periodically give rise to sandstorms. Winds often carry the dust eastward to the populous regions along China’s east coast, particularly in the springtime.

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