Category: EOG
Chinese Fishing Fleet Returns Yearly to Argentina
Chinese Fishing Fleet Returns Yearly to Argentina
Largest Wildfires in New Mexico’s History
Largest Wildfires in New Mexico’s History
Wildfire season has started early in New Mexico. Multiple wildfires have been burning in the state since April. These fires have surpassed the largest fires in New Mexico’s history. Dry conditions, high winds, and the number of fires have hindered fire suppression. Fortunately, most of the wildfires are either contained or approaching containment.
- The Cooks Peak Fire started on May 13th. It is now 100% contained but is still actively burning. It has burned 59,000 acres and its cause is unknown at this time.
- The largest wildfire, Hermits Peak, started as two separate fires: a prescribed burn that became uncontrolled on April 6th; and a holdover fire from January that reemerged around the same time. Hermits Peak is the largest fire in New Mexico’s history with a total area burned at 315,000 acres.
- Cerro Pelado began on April 22nd and its cause is still unknown. It has burned 45,000 acres.
- Bear Trap began on May 1st and has burned 38,000 acres. Fire teams are suppressing damage to natural resources in the surrounding forest/grasslands.
- The Black Fire started on May 14th in the Gila wilderness. It has grown to 249,000 acres and fire crews are attempting to prevent it from crossing into Gila National Forest.
Source: https://www.fireweatheravalanche.org/fire/state/new-mexico
June 1, 2022
2021 Flaring Numbers Published
2021 Flaring Numbers Published
By Tamara Sparks
EOG has posted our annual 2021 flaring numbers on our VNF website. Global flaring increased slightly in 2021 to 156.2 BCM from 152.6 BCM in 2020, including upstream and downstream flaring. Both upstream and downstream flaring saw a slight increase.
Russia remained the top country for upstream flaring. Among the top 10 countries for upstream flaring, Russia, Iran, Mexico, and Libya had substantial increases in flaring, while the US, Algeria, Venezuela, and Nigeria saw decreases. The US in particular had a large drop in flaring in 2021 to almost half of what is was in 2019.
May 16, 2022
Blackout in Puerto Rico seen by VIIRS satellite
Blackout in Puerto Rico seen by VIIRS satellite
By Tamara Sparks
The island-wide power outage caused by a fire at a power plant in Puerto Rico is visible in satellite imagery from the VIIRS day night band. Widespread loss of lighting on April 7, 2022, indicated in red, is seen across the island, although there are areas with typical lighting levels, seen in yellow. Cloud cover over the island is minimal, so the decrease in lighting is not due to clouds. In contrast, nearby US and British Virgin Islands have stable lighting, except for areas with cloud cover.
April 11, 2022
Update on Ukraine in Dark – 2022/03/05
Update on Ukraine in Dark
By David Hsu
Most cities in Ukraine are still in the dark – except those in eastern Ukraine near Donetsk and Luhansk in the regions under Russian control. Two noticeable clusters of new lighting surrounding Chernihiv and Bucha, suggesting Russian forces making their way toward Kyiv. There were also some activities seen in Belarus near southern border.
For past images and latest update on Ukraine, visit the dedicated page here.
March 7th 2022
Multiple Wildfires around Bay County Florida
Multiple Wildfires around Bay County Florida
By Elijah Mt. Castle
Satellite data provides insights about the unfolding conflict in Ukraine
Satellite data provides insights about the unfolding conflict in Ukraine
By Feng Chi (David), Hsu
Kyiv experienced a horrifying night on 2/26. The oil depot near Vasylkiv Air Base was on fire creating extremely large fire. EOG was able to detect the event with both VNF and VNL from the thermal signature and visible light it created. Under curfew, most cities in Ukraine are much dimmer than they used to be. But we still see some places being particularly bright. Such as Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant and Buryakivka radioactive waste site near the northern border. There are some other places exhibiting light where normally dark. We do not know what is being the source of light.
February 28, 2022
Earth Observation Group is the Pioneer in Global Nighttime Lights Product Generation
Earth Observation Group is the Pioneer in Global Nighttime Lights Product Generation
The Earth Observation Group (EOG) pioneered the development of monthly and annual global nighttime light products from low light imaging data collected by meteorological satellite sensors. Initially with data from the U.S. Air Force Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) Operational Linescan System (OLS) and later with day / night band (DNB) data from the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite (VIIRS). EOG’s approach features a cascading series of filtration steps to exclude sunlit, moonlit, stray light and cloudy pixels. The annual sets are then filtered to remove outliers (biomass burning, High Energy Particle (HEP) detections, some aurora) and finally the background is zeroed out. What remains are primarily surface lighting features.
Using this formula EOG has produced a total of 57 annual and 584 monthly nighttime light products over the past two decades (Table 1). These are available on an open access basis from: https://payneinstitute.mines.edu/eog/nighttime-lights/. EOG’s nighttime lights product are widely used by researchers around the world and have resulted in thousands of peer review publications. Google scholar lists 2500+ papers based on VIIRS nighttime lights and 5600+ papers based on DMSP nighttime lights.
Despite these successes, we are aware of the flaws and shortcomings of the products. Users take the products and use them as-is, often without visual inspection, leading to erroneous results and skepticism on product validity. There are clear pathways for product improvement that would benefit large numbers of researchers and provide societal benefits.
February 10, 2022
VNF Detects Oil Container Explosion
VNF Detects Oil Container Explosion
By Tamara Sparks
VIIRS Nightfire detected the Trinity Spirit, a floating oil production, storage, and offloading vessel, which exploded and caught fire off the coast of Nigeria early on Feb 2, 2022. The Suomi NPP satellite overpass at 00:47 UTC first detected the blaze, with an average temperature of 1043K for detections in the area. Almost an hour later at 01:36 UTC, the NOAA-20 satellite saw the fire burning hotter, averaging 1410K. These temperatures are lower than the average gas flaring temperature at the site, 1718K. Reporting says the site had been inactive prior to this incident, which is confirmed by the VNF flaring temporal profile showing very little flaring activity since early 2020.
February 4, 2022