Southern Africa

Credit: Jacques Descloitres; MODIS team; NASA, Posted on: Wednesday, 10 November 2004, 07:47 CST Download full size image

This true-color Aqua MODIS image from October 31, 2004, shows southern Africa as Spring starts to turn the Drakensberg Mountains green with new growth. The greening is predominantly confined to the Republic of South Africa, Lesotho (lower right), and Swaziland (right, on the border of South Africa and Mozambique). To the northwest, the mountains of the south begin giving way to the southern edge of the Kalahari Desert, which crosses the borders of South Africa, Namibia (left), and Botswana (center). Along Namibia’s coast with the Atlantic Ocean, the cold Benguela Current flows up from the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, and inhibits rainfall. The lack of precipitation has created the Namib Desert, which appears orange, and is known for enormous sand dunes that are visible in the high-resolution 250-m per pixel image.

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