The animations represent aerosol optical thickness from a portion of GEOS-5 simulation from September 2006 to April 2007. Major tropospheric aerosol types are emitted into the atmosphere and transported by winds, turbulence, and deep convection across the globe. Dust is represented with orange to red colors, sea salt with blue, organic and black carbon with green to yellow to white, and sulfates with ash brown to white. The yellow and red dots on the land surface indicate the locations of wildfires and human-initiated burning that have been detected by the MODIS instrument aboard the NASA Terra and Aqua satellites