Global Water Supply Chart [PIC] USGS Global Visualization Viewer NASA Creates World's First Global Forest Map Using Lasers Image by Jesse Allen and Robert Simmon Scientists, using three NASA satellites, have created a first-of-its-kind map that details the height of the world's forests. The data was collected from NASA's ICESat, Terra and Aqua satellites. The latter two satellites are responsible for most of NASA's Gulf spill imagery. Image by NASA/Scientific Visualization Studio/Chris Meaney The laser technology called LIDAR was used to capture the data. "LIDAR is unparalleled for this type of measurement," said Michael Lefsky of the Colorado State University, responsible for capturing the data. The map is based on data from more than 250 million laser pulses collected over 7 years. The new map confirms that the world's tallest forests are clustered in the Pacific Northwest of North America and some parts of Southeast Asia. "What we really want is a map of above-ground biomass, and the height map helps get us there," said Richard Houghton, an expert in terrestrial ecosystem science. But what about the carbon?
Infographic of the Day: It's a Small World, Afterall If you're wondering how "close" two places are, a geographic map doesn't help much anymore. If the airports are good--or if there's a bullet train nearby--hundreds of miles might as well be down the street. Point being, "distance" is now really a function less of geography, than of the transport networks we've invented. Which is why researchers at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre in Ispra, Italy, and the World Bank, created this gorgeous map. Then they plotted these results on a color coded map: The brighter an area, the closer it is to a big city; the darker it is, the further out it is. As the New Scientist reports: Plotted onto a map, the results throw up surprises. The most remote place: Tibet, parts of which are as much as three weeks away from a city--with the journey comprising 20 days on foot. Check out the New Scientist's entire gallery of 11 different maps.
World Sunlight Map Watch the sun rise and set all over the world on this real-time, computer-generated illustration of the earth's patterns of sunlight and darkness. The clouds are updated daily with current weather satellite imagery. The Mercator projection used here is one way of looking at the spherical earth as a flat map. Used since the 16th century for navigation, straight lines on this map can be used accurately as compass bearings but the size and shape of continents are distorted. Compare this with Peters, Mollweide or equirectangular projection maps. Also available is a semi-realistic view of dawn and dusk from far above the Earth, a look at the moon, and information about how this works.
Mapping a World of Human Activity With the world networked on an unprecedented scale, and the global population hitting 7 billion only weeks ago, we are living in a uniquely interconnected era, creating new opportunites and dependencies. It's the result of millenia of exploration, travel, exploitation, and innovation, and the Anthropocene, meaning “the new human-dominated period of the Earth’s history,” is a term coined in 2000 to describe this epoch. A Cartography of the Anthropocene is an effort by global education organization Globaïa to map this epoch, illustrating the various ways that global humanity connects and is interdependent. Anthropocene Mapping from Globaïa on Vimeo. Limited time only! Using data gathered from US government agencies, anthropologist Felix Pharand-Deschenes has created a collection of maps that illustrate the various circulatory systems that connect humanity: cities, roads, railways, power lines, pipelines, cable Internet, airlines, and shipping lanes. Electronic Networks Across America