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Benvenuti in queste pagine dedicate a scienza, storia ed arte. Amelia Carolina Sparavigna, Torino

Tuesday, July 26, 2011

The decreasing level of Toshka Lakes seen from space

The decreasing level of Toshka Lakes seen from space
by Amelia Carolina Sparavigna, Dipartimento di Fisica,
Politecnico di Torino, Torino, Italy
Abstract

Toshka Lakes are lakes recently formed in the Sahara Desert of Egypt, by the water of the Nile, conveyed from the Nasser Lake through a canal in the Toshka Depression. From space, astronauts noticed the growing of a first lake, the easternmost one, in 1998. Then additional lakes  grew in succession due west, the westernmost one between 2000 and 2001. In fact, sources of  precious information on Toshka Lakes are the pictures takes by the crews of space missions and  the satellite imagery. They show that, from 2006, the lakes started shrinking. A set of recent  images displays that the surface of the easternmost lake is strongly reduced.
More
http://arxiv.org/abs/1107.4430

The easternmost of the Toshka Lakes in 2005 (NASA imagery)

 
The same lake in 2011 (NASA imagery, March 31, 2011)


Superposition of the two images. Note the strong decreasing of the surface of the lake. 

Read the detailed discussion at Toshka Lakes  on this blog.