Canary Islands: Fuerteventura

Orbit 33458 Frame 3027 13 September 2001 11:32 GMT

Northern part of Fuerteventura imaged together with the southern part of Lanzarote.
Fuerteventura's denomination originates most probably from ''fuerte'' (strong) and ''viento'' (wind). As in all Canary Islands, here too, the climate is dominated by the regular north-eastern trade wind and the warm Canary stream, both ensuring a compensatory effect of springlike temperatures.
To the north: the natural parc of Corralejo and of the island of Lobos, with the volcanic formation of Bayuyo. To the east: Puerto del Rosario, the capital.
Lanzarote, the most northern island in the Canaries, is the island of contrasts with its beaches, its volcanic lava formations, some desert and a well protected environment since UNESCO declared the island a ''Biosphere Reserve''.

Click on the circled areas above to see high-resolution details of this image.

Keywords: ESA European Space Agency - Agence spatiale europeenne, observation de la terre, earth observation, satellite remote sensing, teledetection, geophysique, altimetrie, radar, chimique atmospherique, geophysics, altimetry, radar, atmospheric chemistry