By Chris Elvidge
The Darvaza Gas Crater in Turkmenistan, also known as the “Gates of Hell,” is seen by VIIRS Nightfire. The nightly temporal profile shows a gradual decline in the activity levels and an indication of annual cycling. The temperature has been steady near 1224 K. That is about 400 K cooler than the typical gas flare, perhaps an indication of inefficient combustion.
by Tilottama Ghosh, Christopher Elvidge, Mikhail Zhizhin
On February 6, 2023, a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck at a depth of 20 km, and at a distance of 30 km WNW of Gaziantep province in Turkey (https://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/earthquake.php?id=1218444). At least 120 aftershocks have been felt around the region, according to the United States Geological Survey (USGS). At least 41,000 people have lost their lives till date (February 15*, 2023) and the number continues to rise. The natural disaster has aggravated the preexisting humanitarian need in the region as many Syrian refugees are concentrated in the 10 affected provinces of southern Turkey, and Syria, and have been already suffering from over a decade of civil war.
The earthquake was caused by the Arabian plate moving northwards and grinding against the Anatolian plate (https://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake/271/M7-8-CENTRAL-TURKEY-on-February-6th-2023-at-01-17-UTC). The movement of these two plates along the transform fault boundary caused the severe earthquake in Turkey and Syria.
In the attached images the fault lines are shown in cyan, and the earthquake epicenter is shown as a point in light green.
The images are red, green blue color composites:
Red = JPSS NPP VIIRS DNB January 2022, monthly cloud-free composite
Green = JPSS NPP VIIRS DNB visible band
Blue = JPSS NPP VIIRS M15 thermal band – inverted so cold clouds and cold terrain are bright blue.
The first image shows a typical day prior to the earthquake, with lit areas shown in yellow. The pages to follow show results from individual nights following the earthquake with power outage in red, normal power supply in yellow, and the clouds and high elevation (cold) terrain are shown in blue. Lights obscured by clouds are magenta. It is interesting to note that the areas of power outage follow the fault line. The progression of images show that in some areas power supplies are returning.
by Tilottama Ghosh, Christopher Elvidge
The image is a red, green blue color composite with:
Red = JPSS NPP VIIRS DNB January 2022 monthly cloud-free composite
Green = JPSS NPP VIIRS DNB visible band
Blue = JPSS NPP VIIRS M15 thermal band – inverted so cold clouds and terrain are bright blue
The areas of power outage are shown in red, normal power supply in yellow, and the clouds and high elevation (cold) terrain are shown in blue. Light obscured by clouds are magenta.
Millions of people in Pakistan were reported to be without electric power on during the day on Monday, January 23, 2023 when electricity was turned off Sunday night to conserve energy. The next morning, technicians were unable to restart the system in the dawn hours and the power remained off during much of the day on January 23 (https://apnews.com/article/disaster-planning-and-response-karachi-pakistan-islamabad-business-2dc7d442d662f462de146111d02c49e2?utm_source=homepage&utm_medium=TopNews&utm_campaign=position_05). Many major cities, including the capital of Islamabad, and many of the small villages and towns across Pakistan were reported to be without electricity for more than twelve hours. Officials announced that power was restored in many cities after a blackout of about 15 hours. Due to the lack of proper maintenance and failure of the government to invest in new infrastructure, Pakistan’s power distribution infrastructure is in poor shape and has become susceptible to frequent blackouts (https://www.nytimes.com/2023/01/23/world/asia/pakistan-power-outage-blackouts.html)
Despite the reporting of power outages, the satellite analysis indicates that most areas of lighting remained lit, perhaps due to the use of local backup generators. The VIIRS data were collected after midnight on January 23, 2023. Several patches of lighting outage were detected based on a red color in the color composite. Some of the outage areas are indicated with lines on the color composite image.
By: Elijah Mt. Castle
There was a wildfire in the Northeast edge of Southern Australia that grew to over 65,000 hectares (161,000 acres). The wildfire started on the 19th of September and burned for 10 days. Due to its location in remote APY land (An indigenous protected zone) fire suppression efforts was hampered. Fortunately, the communities of Kalka and Pipalyatjara were not threatened by the fire. Firebreaks were created to protect the endangered species of warru that live in the area. No damage was reported from the fire. Pictured is a rough extent of the fire with an estimated area of 51,000 hectares (126,000 acres). This was estimated by placing a 2km buffer around valid VNF detection points. The official measured area of the fire was 65,000 hectares, so the method of using a 2km buffer range around VNF detections was a decent approximation of the extent of the fire with an error of 21.5%. Due to the nature of VNF, flaming activity is only detected at night. The discrepancy in burn area may be due to missing data from the fire expanding during the day. The VNF data used was from September 19th – 29th, 2022.
October 28, 2022
Florida Power Outage
by Tilottama Ghosh
Red Band: JPSS NPP VIIRS DNB February 2022 monthly cloud free composite
Green Band: JPSS NPP VIIRS DNB visible band
Blue Band: JPSS NPP VIIRS DNB inverted M15 thermal band
The areas of power outage are shown in red, normal power supply in yellow, and the clouds and terrain are shown in blue.
Hurricane Ian made landfall in Florida on the southwest coast in the island of Cayo Costa near Fort Myers and Cape Coral on September 28th at about 3:15 pm local time as a Category 4 Hurricane. It caused immense damage to life and property. On September 30th, 1.8 million people were still without power (https://www.axios.com/2022/09/28/hurricane-ian-florida-power-outage). The RGB (Red-Green-Blue) image on the right shows the power outage in red as of September 30th. The path of Hurricane Ian has been retraced from the ‘Zoom Earth’ Image of NOAA/NESDIS/STAR (https://zoom.earth/storms/ian-2022/). The RGB image of on the right is of August 18th and shows the power supply during normal times.
October 5, 2022
Puerto Rico power outage
by Tilottama Ghosh
Red Band: JPSS NPP VIIRS DNB February 2022 monthly cloud free composite
Green Band: JPSS NPP VIIRS DNB visible band
Blue Band: JPSS NPP VIIRS DNB inverted M15 thermal band
The areas of power outage are shown in red, normal power supply in yellow, and the clouds and terrain are shown in blue.
On September 15th, power supply was ‘normal’ in Puerto Rico. Increasing cloud cover was seen September 16th onwards, till Hurricane Fiona made landfall on September 18th. The cloud cover remained heavy till September 21st making it difficult to get a ‘clear’ view of the power outage. The September 22nd RGB image shows the power outage in red. This is confirmed by the Reuters report that 1.1. million homes are still without power in Puerto Rico (https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/one-million-still-without-power-puerto-rico-after-fiona-2022-09-22/)
September 26, 2022
By Elijah Mt. Castle
A fuel storage depot in Matanzas, Cuba burned for 5 days. The fire destroyed 4 crude oil tankers in the port which made up 40% of the country’s reserves. The oil in Matanzas is mainly used for generating electricity. The country has already been experiencing blackouts in the last months and shortages on gasoline and other items. The fire was started by a lightning strike igniting one of the tanks and quickly spread to the others. Mexican and Venezuelan fire teams have assisted the Cuban government in combating the fire. Large oil fires like this one can cause many health issues. Citizens as far as Havana, ~100 km(62mi) away, have been advised to wear face masks. The massive smoke cloud, observable in the map, can also cause acid rain which can cause and irritate respiratory problems. Pictured are the VNF detections for August 6th-8th 2022. Pictured with the map is the Planck curve for the August 6th detection. The detection had a temperature of 1171 K (1648 F).
August 11, 2022
By Elijah Mt. Castle
There is a grain silo fire burning in the capital of Lebanon, Beirut. The age of the grain has caused it to begin fermenting, adding alcohol to the fire. The blaze started in early July and has been continuously burning. The fire is currently being allowed to smolder for fear that any fire suppression efforts would cause the silos to collapse from their previous damage. The port city of Beirut was rocked by a deadly explosion on August 4th, 2020. It was heard in the neighboring country of Cyprus 240km (150 mi) away. The explosion was caused by the unsafe storage of ammonium nitrate. The resulting blast had a force equivalent to 1 kilotons of TNT, the same force as the first nuclear bombs. The explosion took place on the docks next to the now burning silos creating a crater that was quickly filled by the sea. 218 deaths were reported and over 7000 injuries were logged. The 2,750 tons of ammonium nitrate were seized from an abandoned Moldovan cargo ship 6 years prior. There were allegations of fireworks and other explosive materials also being stored improperly at the site. The current fire does not pose any threat to any structure outside of the damaged silos themselves. Pictured are the VNF detections for July 12th and 13th 2022. The fire is burning on the inside of the concrete silos, so only a few detections were noticed during the fire. Pictured with the map is the Planck curve and auxiliary data for the July 13th detection, which had a recorded temperature of 1395K (2050 F). Due to the satellite pixel size, the detections aren’t located directly at the silo location.
By Elijah Mt. Castle