May 6, 2024

Seeing Suomi: Reindeer, Indigenous People, and Modern Meteorology Converge in a Winter Scene From Scandinavia

2016
It is the land of reindeer husbandry– one of the few put on Earth where deer have actually been domesticated. It is the house of Europes only recognized native individuals. It is the ancestral homeland of “the daddy of satellite meteorology.” Invite to Scandinavia.
The image above is part of a worldwide composite put together from information gotten in 2016 by the NOAA-NASA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite. This nighttime view of Scandinavia was made possible by the “day-night band” of the Visible Infrared Imaging Radiometer Suite. VIIRS was constructed to be delicate sufficient to measure nighttime light emissions and reflections, to distinguish the strength of lights, and to observe how they alter.
The satellite was called for Verner Suomi, a meteorology researcher and revered long time teacher at the University of Wisconsin– Madison. Suomi constructed a flat-plate radiometer that was launched on the Explorer 7 satellite in October 1959.

The image above is part of a global composite put together from data gotten in 2016 by the NOAA-NASA Suomi National Polar-orbiting Partnership (Suomi NPP) satellite. The satellite was named for Verner Suomi, a meteorology researcher and revered longtime teacher at the University of Wisconsin– Madison. Suomi constructed a flat-plate radiometer that was launched on the Explorer 7 satellite in October 1959. It was the very first of numerous Earth-observing instruments that Suomi developed or developed over a five-decade career, and he was instrumental in advancing the research study of clouds, weather, and the planets radiation budget. Motorized automobiles and electronic tools have ended up being part of the now semi-nomadic rounding up life, the ancient Sami languages are still essential to animal husbandry in the cold and rugged area.

Though he grew up in Minnesota, Suomi was the child of Finnish immigrants from the Aland Islands. In the Finnish language, Suomi is the name for Finland.
January 30, 2014
The natural-color image was gotten on January 30, 2014, by the Operational Land Imager (OLI) on Landsat 8. Some of the landscape was likely lit by alpenglow, a phenomenon where airborne snow, water, and ice show sunlight down towards Earth even if the Sun is below the regional horizon.
The Sápmi area stretches throughout parts of Finland, Sweden, Norway, and Russia, and it is the ancient house of the native Sami individuals. About 80,000 to 100,000 Sami are spread across the 4 nations, and they have actually long lived a nomadic life of searching and gathering and reindeer herding. An approximated 500,000 reindeer reside in Scandinavia, with the majority of them tended and herded by the Sami.
By some historic accounts, the Sami may have been herding reindeer as far back as the 800s CE. Motorized cars and electronic tools have become part of the now semi-nomadic rounding up life, the ancient Sami languages are still crucial to animal husbandry in the cold and rugged region. Reindeer and the rounding up units that tend them are main to the culture, providing meals, tools, clothing, and a structure to life amidst changing times in northern Europe.
NASA Earth Observatory images by Joshua Stevens, utilizing Black Marble data from NASA/GSFC, Blue Marble imagery by Reto Stöckli, and Landsat information from the U.S. Geological Survey.