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April 26, 2026 - Tibetan Plateau
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Remnants of winter’s snow speckled the landscape between many blue lakes on the Tibetan Plateau in late April 2026. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this false-color image on April 22. In this type of image, snow and ice look electric blue, vegetation is green, open land appears tan, and water looks blue, with deeper water appearing deeper blue.
The Tibetan Plateau, also known as the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, spans about 965,000 square miles (2.5 million square kilometers). With an average elevation of 4,500 meters (14,800 feet) above sea level, the expansive plateau is one of the Earth’s highest geographic features, earning it the frequently-used nickname “roof of the world”.
A scientific study published by Yan Zhou and colleagues in 2024 looked at the evolution of lakes on the Tibetan Plateau. Among other findings, the group estimated that the held a total of 4,385 lakes larger than 0.1 square kilometers in 1991, with 4.2 percent of them measuring between 10 and 50 square kilometers and 2.9 percent of them larger than 50 square kilometers. These lakes collectively covered 37,471 square kilometers, an area larger than Lake Erie. By 2023, the researchers counted more than 6,159 lakes covering 53,267 square kilometers of the plateau, an area nearly as large as Lake Michigan. This finding suggests that the number of lakes and the amount of water held in the lakes had increased during the study period.
Image Facts
Satellite:
Terra
Date Acquired: 4/22/2026
Resolutions:
1km (322.7 KB), 500m (760.3 KB), 250m (1 MB)
Bands Used: 7,2,1
Image Credit:
MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
Remnants of winter’s snow speckled the landscape between many blue lakes on the Tibetan Plateau in late April 2026. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite acquired this false-color image on April 22. In this type of image, snow and ice look electric blue, vegetation is green, open land appears tan, and water looks blue, with deeper water appearing deeper blue.
The Tibetan Plateau, also known as the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, spans about 965,000 square miles (2.5 million square kilometers). With an average elevation of 4,500 meters (14,800 feet) above sea level, the expansive plateau is one of the Earth’s highest geographic features, earning it the frequently-used nickname “roof of the world”.
A scientific study published by Yan Zhou and colleagues in 2024 looked at the evolution of lakes on the Tibetan Plateau. Among other findings, the group estimated that the held a total of 4,385 lakes larger than 0.1 square kilometers in 1991, with 4.2 percent of them measuring between 10 and 50 square kilometers and 2.9 percent of them larger than 50 square kilometers. These lakes collectively covered 37,471 square kilometers, an area larger than Lake Erie. By 2023, the researchers counted more than 6,159 lakes covering 53,267 square kilometers of the plateau, an area nearly as large as Lake Michigan. This finding suggests that the number of lakes and the amount of water held in the lakes had increased during the study period.
Image Facts
Satellite:
Terra
Date Acquired: 4/22/2026
Resolutions:
1km (322.7 KB), 500m (760.3 KB), 250m (1 MB)
Bands Used: 7,2,1
Image Credit:
MODIS Land Rapid Response Team, NASA GSFC
