Science Art: Puerto Rico after Hurricane Maria, by Landsat 8

9 October 2017 grant Featured, Science Art 0

from https://eros.usgs.gov/imagegallery/image-week-2#Puerto-Rico-HMaria-imagesClick to embiggen vastly

The USGS Earth Explorer program shared these before-and-after pictures of Puerto Rico. The main difference that’s visible from the Landsat 8 satellite after hurricanes Irma and Maria blasted through is in the vegetation. Lots of trees denuded of leaves or just plain knocked over – which means the patches of green visible from space in 2016 are more brown, after September 2017. I can’t tell if the patchiness on the lower right is all clouds or if some of that is sediment stirred up by the storm – the USGS has some other images of the Keys after Irma that have some similar cloudiness off the beaches.

But they’ll grow back. Eventually.