Malé, The Maldives As Seen From Space

The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over Malé – the capital and most populous metropolis within the Republic of Maldives.
The Republic of Maldives encompass a series of round 1200 small coral islands which can be grouped into clusters of atolls – scattered throughout 90 000 sq km of ocean. A variety of these little islands might be seen within the picture, with the turquoise colors depicting clear, shallow waters dotted by coral reefs which contrasts with the darkish colors of the Indian Ocean.

Malé, situated on the southern fringe of the North Malé Atoll, might be simply noticed in the best of the picture. The island is sufficiently small to stroll round in roughly one hour, with most sights targeting its northern shore. Malé is each a commerce and vacationer centre, linked with Sri Lanka and India by steamship strains, with a number of vessels seen within the picture.

With a inhabitants of greater than 200 000 and an space of round eight sq km, Malé is among the most densely populated cities on the planet with the town protecting virtually all the island.

With greater than 80% of the Maldives’ land standing lower than one metre above common sea degree, the Maldives has the bottom terrain of any nation on the planet. This makes the archipelago notably weak to sea-level rise.

In response to this rising risk, the Maldives is engaged on enhancing the resilience of the nation’s islands, which incorporates establishing the synthetic island of Hulhumale – seen northeast of the airport island of Hulhulé.

The island has been constructed by pumping sand from the seafloor onto a submerged coral platform, that rises round 2 m above sea degree. The reclaimed land supplies some much-needed area, and also will assist meet the economic and business improvement of the Malé area.

Satellite tv for pc knowledge have proven that the worldwide ocean has risen, on common, 3 mm a yr during the last 25 years. Warming ocean waters, melting glaciers and diminishing ice sheets is making rising sea ranges an actual risk for low-lying islands such because the Maldives.

Following liftoff in November 2020, the Copernicus Sentinel-6 Michael Freilich satellite tv for pc, essentially the most superior mission devoted to measuring sea-level rise, is now absolutely operational – that means that its knowledge can be found to local weather researchers, ocean-weather forecasts and different knowledge customers. Be taught extra concerning the Sentinel-6 mission right here.

This picture, additionally featured on the Earth from House video programme, was captured by the Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission – a two-satellite mission to produce the protection and knowledge supply wanted for Europe’s Copernicus programme.

Credit: comprises modified Copernicus Sentinel knowledge (2019), processed by ESA, CC BY-SA 3.0 IGO
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