Image of the Day: Heat Wave in Northern Europe

On the calendar, Scandinavian summer starts on June 21 in 2008, but summer temperatures had already settled over much of northern Europe by early June. This image shows land surface temperatures—how hot the ground is to the touch, a measure that is different than the air temperatures reported in the news—as observed by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite between June 2 and June 8, 2008.

The image compares the average temperature between June 2 and June 8, 2008, to average temperatures recorded during the same period in June 2000 through 2007. Areas that were warmer than average are red, while cooler than average conditions are represented in blue.The heat that dominated the weather in northern Europe in early June is evident in the dark red that covers Norway, Sweden, Denmark, and parts of Germany and Poland. Southern Europe experienced cooler than average temperatures during the period.

The intense heat and dry weather led to dangerous fire conditions in Scandinavia. Both Norway and Sweden were plagued with several forest fires in early June. A fire that burned for several days in southern Norway was the largest in the country’s history, causing an estimated ten million dollars worth of damage, reported The Norway Post on June 17, 2008.

You can download a 9-kilometer-resolution KMZ file of global land surface temperature anomaly suitable for use with Google Earth.

• References
• Deutsche Presse-Agentur. (2008, June 13). Norway asks for help to tackle large forest blaze. Monsters and Critics. Accessed June 20, 2008.
• Solholm, R. (2008, June 17). State pays part of cost of forest fire. The Norway Post. Accessed June 20, 2008.

NASA image created by Jesse Allen, using data obtained from the Goddard Land Processes data archives. Caption by Holli Riebeek.

The Bad News: You Have Diabetes

Nearly 24 Million in the United States Have Diabetes: CDC

The Good News: Don’t need to have both your legs amputated

Diabetes now affects nearly 24 million people in the United States, an increase of more than 3 million in approximately two years, according to new 2007 prevalence data estimates released today by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). This means that nearly 8 percent of the U.S. population has diabetes. [More precisely, about 13 percent of the adults in the ]

• Number of people with diabetes: About 24 million, or 8% of the population
• Cases of diagnosed diabetes: 18 million
• Undiagnosed cases: 6 million
• New cases diagnosed in adults in 2007: About 2 million
• Younger than 20 with diabetes: About quarter of a million
• Percent of population 60 years and older with diabetes in 2007: 25 percent.
• Percent of all adults in the U-S with diabetes: 12.5 percent

The seventh leading cause of death in the U-S, diabetes is a disease associated with high levels of blood glucose resulting from defects in insulin production that causes sugar to build up in the body. It can cause serious health complications including heart disease, blindness, kidney failure, and lower-extremity amputations.

For more information on diabetes, please visit http://www.cdc.gov/diabetes. To access the National Diabetes Fact Sheet and county-level estimates of diagnosed diabetes, click on the “data and trends” link at the left.

Elevated Risk of Leptospirosis Infection

Before you opt for a kidney transplant, please ensure the kidney is obtained ethically!

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Visitor Health Warning: Elevated Risk of Leptospirosis Infection in New Zealand