NOAA SATELLITE CAPTURES SMOKE PLUME FROM BURNING OIL FIELDS IN IRAQ

March 22, 2003 — NOAA polar-orbiting satellites continue to detect oil well fires in Iraq. The plumes visible in the NOAA satellite imagery are consistent with NOAA's experience in detecting oil fires in the past from satellites in space. The latest NOAA satellite image shows how strong northeast winds blew smoke into the southwestern region of Kuwait from burning oil fields in southeastern Iraq. (Click NOAA image for larger view of smoke plume from Iraqi oil wells taken March 22, 2003, at 2:08 a.m. EST. Click here for image without annotations. Please credit “NOAA.)

This image was produced from data taken by the NOAA-17 satellite on March 22 at 2:08 a.m. EST (10:08 a.m. Iraq local time). The image measures 1280 x 1101 pixels with NOAA annotations. NOAA-17 is a polar-orbiting NOAA satellite, which flies at about 520 miles above the Earth in an almost north-south orbit.

These images were processed by the NOAA Operational Significant Event Imagery, part of NOAA Satellites and Information.

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Greg Hernandez, NOAA, (202) 482-3091