Asian Surveying & Mapping
Breaking News
Chandrayaan-3 launch window opens from July 12: Isro chief
New Delhi- The launch window for India’s third lunar...
Arianespace will launch Kompsat-6 with Vega C for Korea Aerospace Research Institute
Arianespace will launch Kompsat-6 with Vega C for Korea...
New Zealand launches new National Space Policy
The New Zealand Government has launched a new National Space...
UAE Space Agency launches Geospatial Analytics Platform Hackathon
The UAE Space Agency launched the inaugural edition of the...
45th Asian Summit on Remote Sensing to be held in Sri Lanka next year
The 45th Asian Summit on Remote Sensing, the premier...
North Korea says its rocket launch failed, 1st spy satellite lost
The launch of North Korea's first spy satellite was...
Singaporean alliance organizes geospatial-oriented AI challenge
In collaboration with AI Singapore, the Singapore Land Authority...
Saudi Arabia launches $207m geological mapping project
The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia has unveiled the Geological...
North Korea tells neighboring Japan of plans to launch satellite, safety warning issued
North Korea informed neighboring Japan on Monday that it...
Outsight Expands into Asia-Pacific with a New Hong Kong Office to Propel the Deployment of of It’s 3D Lidar Software
Following its recent expansion across Europe with the establishment...

A comma-shaped low-pressure system that pushed across Mongolia and China unleashed a major dust storm in late-March 2023. A tight pressure gradient fueled the strong winds that lifted sand and dust from the Gobi Desert as the system moved into eastern China on March 22. With visibility plummeting in Beijing, air quality sensors measured soaring levels of particulate matter (PM). 

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite captured this image showing a thick swirl of dust over China’s Harbin, Changchun, and Shenyang provinces on March 22, 2023. Cyclonic atmospheric circulation appears to have sucked dust into and above the clouds. 

The dust has affected more than 560 million people in the densely populated region, according to China’s National Forestry Grassland Administration. In Beijing, which has a population of more than 20 million, the air quality index rose well above 500 for coarse (PM10) particles and above 200 for fine (PM2.5) particles on that day. Those levels are considered “hazardous” and “very unhealthy” to human health. 

Image Credit: NASA Earth Observatory image by Lauren Dauphin, using MODIS data from NASA EOSDIS LANCE and GIBS/Worldview.