Dust on snow in the Armenian Highlands

In English Sentinel-2 snow-ice

Simon Gascoin, 27 mars 2018

The ESA website featured this Sentinel-2 image of a large and thick plume of dust off Libya (click here to view in the Sentinel-Hub)

Contains modified Copernicus Sentinel data (2018), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO


This dust can be tracked up to 2000 km away from its source location towards the northeast, in the Armenian Highlands: the time series of Sentinel-2 images below show the region of Mount Artos (Artos Dağı, Արտոս) in eastern Turkey before, during and after the passage of the dust cloud

.

This « orange snow » was also observed in ski resorts in Russia and Romania but I could not find clear-sky satellite images there (only Instagram imagery 🙂 )

https://www.instagram.com/p/BgslmE2gPo_/

edit: on March 31st, a new Sentinel-2 image was acquired after a snowfall

A few days later this snow layer has already melted and the orange dust has resurfaced!

Plus d'actualités

New clear-sky image of the Rasuwa rock-ice avalanche

On 08 Sep 2026, Sentinel-2 acquired a clear-sky image near the release area of the landslide which caused the catastrophic flood in Nepal. Using this image and a pre-event digital elevation model (Berthier 2026) we can analyze the upper part of the avalanche runout profile. The block of rock and ice was released near 5120 […]

How long is the cooling effect of a cloud shadow ?

How long does it take for the cannon barrel to cool down after firing a shell ? Fernand Raynaud => This quote is from a famous old French funny sketch by Fernand Raynaud, which was based on a question in a French manual for soldiers: the sketch is rather long, so I’ll give you the […]

Impact of the August 12, 2026 eclipse on photovoltaic electricity generation in Spain

Photovoltaic (PV) energy supplies more 20% of Spain’s total electricity, and this share hit a new high in July 2026 (28.3% of the nation’s monthly electricity mix). Some media outlets were concerned about the drop in photovoltaic power generation during the 12-Aug-2026 eclipse. Le Monde explained that « the drop is expected to be particularly pronounced […]

Rechercher