
“Iceberg-tsunami” on icelandic Jökulsárlón lagoon
Last acquired Copernicus Sentinel-2B image captured an unusual event on the Jökulsárlón lagoon in Iceland where a mini-tsunami was generated by a massive calving on Breiðamerkurjökull outlet glacier. An iceberg had broken off the glacier and was in the process of flipping over when the image was sensed by the Sentinel-2 on perfect timing. As the

Intense Dust Storms in Africa
In late March 2018, strong winds caused by a train of low-pressure areas appeared to fuel the flow of dust across Africa. Dust storms are quite common during the Spring in the Sahara, because the weather used to change with the seasons. However, according to several observers in the region last week’s storms were particularly

Flooding in Madagascar, a first assessment from Satellite
Madagascar is the world’s fourth largest island, and due to its position in the middle of Indian Ocean is regularly hit by cyclones between the months of November and April. The last tropical cyclone “Ava” hit the island country off the southeastern coast of Africa between the 5th and the 7th of January, killing at least 36

Kutupalong, the largest refugees camp in the World
Kutupalong refugee camp is a refugee camp located in Ukhia, Bangladesh inhabited mostly by Rohingya Muslims that have fled from persecution in neighboring buddhist Myanmar country. It recently became the largest refugee settlement in the world hosting almost 600,000 occupants. Such huge growing is due mainly to the Rohingya Muslims exodus who have sought asylum

Tidal monitoring with Sentinel-2
Tidal phenomenon along the shores was well known since the prehistoric era, but a long trip of investigations through the centuries was necessary from the Greco-Roman Antiquity to the modern era to unravel in a quasi-definitive manner many secrets of the ebb and flow. Tides were firstly studied by Greek philosophers who tried to find

Bogoslof Island: a puzzle for geographers.
Bogoslov Island has a Russian sounding name and indeed belongs to the Aleutian Islands, Alaska which was sold by Russia to United States in 1867. It is actually the summit of a stratovolcano 1800 m height from the seabed and emerged from the ocean in late 1800 after an underwater eruption and since then has been

Rapid mapping of moving Glaciers
Responsible for the 10% of Greenland icebergs, the Jakobshavn Glacier is one of the largest outlet glaciers in the world. According to recent scientific studies it is also one of the fastest moving glaciers on Earth, Its speed can in fact reach on average up to 40 meters per day. Following the global warming effects,

Amazonia Deforestation from Sentinels
The Amazon rainforest represents over half of the planet’s remaining equatorial forests. A real Earth’s hearth and lungs threatened by the human uncontrolled activity. Its deforestation started mainly in the early seventies after the opening of the trans-Amazonian highway (1972). Amongst the principal causes of the progressive logging, the farming and cattle pasture spaces needs are the

Once upon a time in the Nuclear Old West
There is a place in the middle of the Old Wild West, which in the recent past earned the nickname of “the most bombed place on Earth”. We are in the Nevada Test Site (USA) 105 Kilometers northwest from Las Vegas, where from 1951 till 1992, the US government carried out almost 1000 nuclear bomb

Chittagong, where ships go to die
Bangladesh is one of the largest ships breaking country in the world. This happens there because Bangladesh is one of the poorest countries, environmental standard are very low, and workers are very cheep and willing to risk their life every day for few dollars. In Bangladesh they break 150-200 ships per year. Like in an