Identification

Title

Study of the formation of the "black cloud" and its dynamics over Cairo, Egypt, using MODIS and MISR sensors

Abstract

In the past decade, episodes of severe air pollution, known as the "black cloud," have occurred in Cairo, Egypt, in the early autumn. In this study, data from the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectrometer (MODIS) and the Multi-angle Imaging Spectroradiometer (MISR) are used with meteorological data and trajectory analyses to determine the cause of these events. MODIS fire counts put the source as the burning of agricultural waste after harvest season in the Nile delta region. Synchronous MISR data show that these fires create low altitude (< 500 m) plumes of smoke and aerosols which flow over Cairo in a few hours, as confirmed by Hybrid Single-Particle Lagrangian Integrated Trajectory (HYSPLIT) forward trajectory analyses. Much of the burning occurs at night, when an inversion constrains the plumes to remain in the boundary layer (BL). Convection during the day raises the BL, dispersing these smoke particles until the next night.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

http://n2t.net/ark:/85065/d7125t73

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2010-11-10T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact