Heavy Rains Flood Peru
"Heavy rains that began in mid-March 2017 have devastated much of Peru. According to reports, more than 70,000 people lost their homes and more than 60 people died in floods and mudslides. Both the Lago La Niña and Piura River have overflowed their banks. Official data report that about 4,660 miles (7,500 km) of roads and 509 bridges have been damaged. In these false-color images, clouds and salt pans (depressions in the ground in which salt water evaporates, leaving salt behind) appear light blue."
yep....noticed that too.
Um, no I didn't notice that at all. One effort shows data from 2004, mainly due to 2004 being such a major year for the Muir Glacier. The rest are pretty recent. 20% are from 2020. 75% from the last 5 years.
Unless you meant that any remote sensing data is from the past, even if taken seconds ago.
Satellite data usually takes a little while to be made public due to processing requirements (e.g. ICESat-2 was launched in 2018, but some higher level products haven't been produced yet.) Then researchers need time to figure out what the data is actually showing.
Also, regarding the images being a few years old, that’s obviously for security reasons. Satellite images made available to the public are never current for obvious reasons.