File:Dry Season in the Altiplano (MODIS).jpg

English: October 29, 2023 March 7, 2023

The spectacular scenery of the high Altiplano of southwest Bolivia sits in a cold, arid climate, with an extended dry season between April and late November. When rain does fall, it is concentrated between December and March and brings big changes to the landscape, especially to the salt flats (playas) found in this dry environment.

On October 29, 2023, the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired a false-color image centered near the Salar de Uyuni, the largest salt flat in the world. Covering about 10,582 square kilometers (4,086 square miles), the mineral-crusted playa is roughly the same size as the “Big Island” of Hawaii. To the northwest of Uyuni is the Salar de Coipasa and to the northeast is Lake Poopo. Other smaller salt flats are scattered around this trio.

A second false-color Terra MODIS image of the same area was collected on March 7, 2023. Toggling between the two images by clicking on the dates will show the differences between the end of the dry season (October) and the end of the wet season (March).

In this type of false-color image, a combination of visible light, near-infrared, and shortwave infrared (MODIS bands 7-2-1) are used to better distinguish standing water (dark blue) from clouds (white or very pale blue), vegetation (green), open land (tan or brown), and the mineral crusts of the salt flats (shades of electric blue). Much more vegetation is evident and standing water is visible in all of the playas at the end of the wet season when compared with the October image.