Precipitation Measurements from Space

There is so much awesomeness here! First you see how the viewing area of the orbiting satellites widens as they approach the poles (as the lines of longitude converge). Then you can easterly trade winds in the equatorial regions and the westerlies with their superimposed mid-latitude cyclones.

National Urban Change Indicator (NUCI)

The National Urban Change Indicator (NUCI) is available between 1987 and 2016 and somehow measures land use changes overtime, especially due to urbanization and other human-caused changes such as deforestation. Load into your ArcGIS map as a feature layer and use the Summarize Within GP tool to quantify changes with a specific area over time.

A Real-Life Excel Test from a Job Interview: Can You Pass?

Try it! A Real-Life Excel Test from a Job Interview: Can You Pass?

Plane Talking

This is super-cool: Plane Talking - here you can virtually 'fly' a commercial airliner from London to Manchester.

Retreat at Pine Island Glacier

Great video below from NASA showing the retreat of the Pine Island Glacier. But, dear NASA: please realize that a normal does 'see' this retreat because it is not clear to them where the seasonal sea ice end and the 'proper' glacier starts. Easy fix: annotate it!

Climate and Art

Two useful sources here about the connection between art (paintings) and climate change. The basic conclusion is somewhat obvious: weather and climate are reflected in the art produced in a given period, but not in a quantifiable way that would make art a climate proxy.

• Paintings as climate archives
• What Famous Old Paintings Can Tell Us About Climate Change

Google's Earth View

Explore the beauty of planet Earth using Google's Earth View.

Vertical Urban Farms

The basic idea is not new, but These vertical farms could turn Brooklyn into an agricultural oasis definitely look cool. To me this looks like a case of where form dictates function, but, maybe this works!

The New 3D Printing

3D printing via fused deposition modelling (FDM) is now pretty much mainstream, but there are of course much more cutting-edge techniques out there - see 3D printing gets bigger, faster and stronger (Nature, 6 February 2020).

Software for Scientific Collaboration

Tech tools to make research more open and inclusive (Nature, 6 February 2020) is a nice read and mentions some of the well-known and lesser-known 'apps' such as Slack, Mattermost, or MindView. It would be great if Westfield State could offer a suite of these apps for use in learning and learning!

Old Weather

Old Weather is a cool citizen science project to transcribe weather observations recorded by ships since the 1850s or so. Have a look at the Weather Time Machine for context and examples as a Story Map.

Corona Virus Live Map and Dashboard

The 2019-nCoV Global Cases (by Johns Hopkins CSSE) is a great example of a live web map 'inside' a series of live dashboards, with the data served from a live Google Sheet.

48 Years of Alaska's Glaciers

Messing with Google

Have a look @ Google Maps Hacks

Optimism and Climate Change

Important comment in Nature: Paris taught me how to do what is necessary to combat climate change by Christiana Figures.

The key message: you need to present and demonstrate optimism - that's a 'contagious' mindset and leads to effective decision-making. Now we all move away from confrontational blaming and towards shared opportunities. To quote: "Optimism is about acknowledging difficulties - and losses - yet still designing a better future.

Sure - that all sounds a little naive, but maybe not: maybe this fundamental trait of leadership and negotiations is applicable not just for finding realistic and pragmatic climate change solutions, but also for issues such as those that we are having right now at Westfield State.

Race and racism in the geosciences

Excellent comment in Nature Geoscience: Race and racism in the geosciences

Coastal Peru

Great image @ https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/146241/coast-of-peru

Near-Shore Sediments

Great satellite image from NASA showing how much more sediment is in the water near-shore vs. farther off-shore: Eddy Extravaganza off the Italian Coast