{"id":30363,"date":"2018-10-21T12:59:49","date_gmt":"2018-10-21T12:59:49","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/?p=30363"},"modified":"2018-10-25T14:23:45","modified_gmt":"2018-10-25T14:23:45","slug":"cloud-plume-from-an-industrial-source-in-ontario-canada","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/archives\/30363","title":{"rendered":"Cloud plume from an industrial source in Ontario, Canada"},"content":{"rendered":"

Thanks go out to Jason Alumbaugh from NWS Marquette<\/strong><\/a>, who sent the following in an email:<\/p>\n

“Previous shift here at NWS Marquette passed along interesting feature on satellite last night. Origin of the feature is approx. 49.23 N and 91.00 W (just west of CWDV – Upsala in Ontario) but eventually the plume spread as far south as south central Upper Michigan and northeast Wisconsin (IMT to MNM). Our meteorologists said it looked like a fire and called Environment Canada overnight but they had not heard of anything reported.”<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\"GOES-16<\/a>

GOES-16 “Red” Visible (0.64 \u00b5m),<\/em> Near-Infrared “Snow\/Ice” (1.61 \u00b5m),<\/em> Near-Infrared “Cloud Particle Size” (2.24 \u00b5m)<\/em> and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 \u00b5m)<\/em> images [click to play animation | MP4<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/div>Taking a look at the initial daytime formation of the plume on 20 October 2018<\/strong><\/a>, a very subtle signature could be seen at times in GOES-16 (GOES-East)<\/em> “Red” Visible (0.64 \u00b5m<\/strong><\/a>) images, but the plume was more obvious in the Near-Infrared “Snow\/Ice” (1.61 \u00b5m<\/strong><\/a>), Near-Infrared “Cloud Particle Size” (2.24 \u00b5m<\/strong><\/a>) and Shortwave Infrared (3.9 \u00b5m<\/strong><\/a>) imagery (above)<\/strong><\/em>. Emissions from an industrial source (likely a power plant, or perhaps the Domtar paper mill<\/strong><\/a>?) acted as cloud condensation nuclei, causing a higher concentration of smaller<\/em> supercooled cloud droplets downwind of the plume source — and this plume of smaller particles was more reflective and thus appeared brighter in the 1.61\/2.24 \u00b5m images and warmer (darker gray)<\/em> in the 3.9 \u00b5m images.<\/p>\n

Color-enhanced 3.9 \u00b5m Shortwave Infrared imagery (below)<\/strong><\/em> showed the transition from a warmer (darker red)<\/em> plume during the day — due to enhanced reflection of incoming solar radiation — to a colder (darker blue)<\/em> plume at night.<\/p>\n

\"GOES-16<\/a>

GOES-16 Shortwave Infrared (3.9 \u00b5m)<\/em> images [click to play animation | MP4<\/strong><\/a>]<\/p><\/div>The higher spatial resolution of MODIS and VIIRS imagery from the polar-orbiting Terra\/Aqua and NOAA-20\/Suomi NPP satellites offered alternative views of the plume. A comparison of Suomi NPP VIIRS Visible (0.64 \u00b5m), Day\/Night Band (0.7 \u00b5m), Near-Infrared “Snow\/Ice” (1.61 \u00b5m), Shortwave Infrared (3.74 \u00b5m) and Infrared Window (11.45 \u00b5m) images (below)<\/strong><\/em> showed the early stage of the plume during the day on 20 October — as was seen with GOES-16, the plume signature was most obvious in the 1.61 \u00b5m Snow\/Ice and 3.74 \u00b5m Shortwave Infrared imagery.<\/p>\n

\"Suomi<\/a>

Suomi NPP VIIRS Visible (0.64 \u00b5m),<\/em> Day\/Night Band (0.7 \u00b5m), Near-Infrared “Snow\/Ice” (1.61 \u00b5m),<\/em> Shortwave Infrared (3.74 \u00b5m)<\/em> and Infrared Window (11.45 \u00b5m)<\/em> images [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>A nighttime comparison of Suomi NPP VIIRS Day\/Night Band (0.7 \u00b5m), Shortwave Infrared (3.74 \u00b5m), Infrared Window (11.45 \u00b5m) and Fog\/stratus Brightness Temperature Difference (11.45-3.74 \u00b5m) images (below)<\/strong><\/em> revealed signatures of the plume at 0716 UTC or 2:16 am CDT on 21 October, after it had traveled nearly 350 miles from the Ontario source to the Green Bay, Wisconsin area. Cloud-top 11.45 \u00b5m infrared brightness temperatures of the plume and the surrounding supercooled clouds were generally in the -13\u00ba to -16\u00baC range.<\/p>\n

\"Suomi<\/a>

Suomi NPP VIIRS Day\/Night Band (0.7 \u00b5m),<\/em> Shortwave Infrared (3.74 \u00b5m),<\/em> Infrared Window (11.45 \u00b5m)<\/em> and Fog\/stratus BTD (11.45-3.74 \u00b5m)<\/em> images [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>A sequence of nighttime Fog\/stratus BTD images from Terra\/Aqua MODIS and NOAA-20\/Suomi NPP VIIRS (below)<\/strong><\/em> showed the plume moving southeastward across the Upper Peninsula of Michigan into northeastern Wisconsin. BTD values associated with the plume were in the 3-5\u00baC range (darker shades of red)<\/em>. [Note: the NOAA-20 VIIRS images are incorrectly labeled as Suomi NPP]<\/p>\n

\"Terra\/Aqua<\/a>

Terra\/Aqua MODIS and NOAA-20\/Suomi NPP VIIRS Fog\/stratus BTD images [click to enlarge]<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Thanks go out to Jason Alumbaugh from NWS Marquette, who sent the following in an email: “Previous shift here at NWS Marquette passed along interesting feature on satellite last night. Origin of the feature is approx. 49.23 N and 91.00 W (just west of CWDV – Upsala in Ontario) but eventually the plume spread as […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":30381,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[70,74,12,78,49,71,48],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30363","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-aqua","category-goes-16","category-modis","category-noaa-20","category-suomi_npp","category-terra","category-viirs"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30363","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30363"}],"version-history":[{"count":16,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30363\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30439,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30363\/revisions\/30439"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30381"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30363"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30363"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cimss.ssec.wisc.edu\/satellite-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30363"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}