Ice on the Dnieper River, Ukraine

(Click on image for larger view.)

After an unsually cold winter, the spring melting of the Kyiv (or Kiev) Reservoir on the Dnieper River in Ukraine has caused potentially hazardous rafts of ice to start drifting south toward a dam and hydroelectric plant at the southern edge of the reservoir.

When the Advanced Land Imager on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite captured this natural-color image on March 17, 2012, open water still surrounded the dam, but many pieces of ice were drifting just to the north. The average ice thickness is about 40 centimeters (16 inches), about half what it was last year when heavy flooding prompted officials to abruptly lower the water level of the reservoir. According to a local media report, the CEO of the company that operates the dam doesn’t expect similar action will be needed this year.

References:
NOAA. (2012) State of the Climate: Global Analysis February 2012 Accessed March 28, 2012.
Kyiv Post. (2010) Fish Die as Ukrainian Authorities Empty Reservoir Accessed March 28, 2012.

NASA Earth Observatory image created by Jesse Allen, using EO-1 ALI data provided courtesy of the NASA EO-1 team. Caption by Adam Voiland.

Instrument:
EO-1 - ALI - NASA