Sunday, October 19, 2008

Fall Colors

Quite a few people, e.g. Mardel at Purls and Murmers, mentioned the spectacular Autumn color show in the northeastern US this year. The colors are so vivid, they are visible from space.
Please visit the MODIS image of the day web page for this image. If you put your mouse over the picture, it will switch a picture of the same region in full June greenness.

In case you are in a trivia contest and this comes up:
It takes 20-30% longer to process visible & IR spectrum satellite imagery in June, when compared to January, because of the rapid changes in land surface as the Boreal (Northern Hemisphere) summer plant growth kicks in. It's not the greenness, but the fact that the scenery is changing so fast at that time of the year. If the Earth's major landmasses were mostly in the Southern Hemisphere instead of in the NH, then globally-averaged changes would be more rapid in January and the reverse would be true.

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