Explore Our Planet

Always good for strong words, Professor James Lovelock will held a lecture this evening at Carlton House Terrace in London at 6:20 pm local time. He is famous for his Gaya theory which considers Earth as a living organism and describes very good the feedback effects of our planet. However, he also supports nuclear energy as a ‘green option’ and even more controvery claims.

The Telegraph had a view into the script and cites: ‘Reducing emissions could speed global warming’. Which according to Lovelock leads to the truth, if industry cuts all emissions so fast that the aerosols will outpower the warming of the greenhouse gases. A theoretical but drastic option.

More interesting may be the part on positive feedbacks and seeing Earth from a holistic point of view. The Telegraph writes:

… Prof Lovelock believes that even the gloomiest predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change are underestimating the current severity of climate change because they do not go into the consequences of the current burden pollution in the atmosphere which will last for centuries….

… According to Professor Lovelock’s gloomy analysis, the IPCC’s climate models fail to take account of the Earth as a living system where life in the oceans and land takes an active part in regulating the climate….

More: Royal Society Webcast, Public Lecture Info

The NEO Project (NASA Earth Observations) provides an advanced flash interface, map download, analysis features and a full fledged OGC WMS server. The range of available layers are all related to Climate Change and Global Warming.

As a first try ExploreOurPla.net implements 5 layers with interesting data. All of them show combined data of last full month. This leads to full coverage since clouds are elimated. See following examples with direct links to the map interface and the description taken from layer abstract (credits go to NASA).

This map shows the temperature of Earth’s lands during the daytime. Temperature is a measure of how warm or cold an object is. During the day, the Sun’s rays warm Earth’s lands. Some of this warmth rises into the air where gases catch and hold the warmth near the surface. These gases (called greenhouse gases) also help to warm Earth’s land surface.

We can use a thermometer to measure the temperature of any single place. Likewise, scientists can measure the temperature of the whole world from space using instruments carried on satellites. Scientists want to know the land’s temperature for many important reasons. For example, in places where it is too hot or too cold food crops may die.

Temperature also influences weather and climate patterns. So, mapping the temperature of Earth’s lands helps scientists to better understand our world.
(more…)

The ICAO (International Civil Aviation Organization) sees its responsibility to address, limit or reduce the impact of aviation greenhouse gas emissions on the global climate.

During the latest session of the Assembly - held at ICAO Headquarters in Montréal from 18 to 28 September 2007 - some members (Egypt, Chile, LACAC) expressed their concerns regarding the EU initiative to include aviation into the European Emission Trading system (ETS). Though all members agree on market mechanisms - not taxes - as best solution.

To fly is most polluting means of transportation, by kilometer, hour and person. The emitted amount of CO2 is estimated to double by 2015, including better efficiency of engines. Emitting NOx and steam at high altitude, forming cirrus clouds and trails even multiplies the climate effects by 2-4.

Assuming a trading system for the european airspace only and an average cost of 10 EURO per ton of CO2 tickets for midrange flights (>1500km) will include an extra amount of about 9 EURO.

Until an international agreement is found it is up to the passengers to compensate their emissions for example with atmosfair. This company uses CDM and invests in e.g. hydropower projects in developing countries.

More:
ICAO: Assembly Resolutions in Force (2004)
IPCC: Aviation and the Global Atmosphere
EU/CE: Giving wings to emission trading
Reuters: Britons top table of carbon emissions from planes
International Blog Action Day

While a proper configured WMS server is able to serve tiles off nearly all sizes some clients use an algorythm to stitch tiles with same size together. For example google maps usually request 256×256 px wide tiles.

Using bigger tiles leads to less requests against the server and faster display in your internet browser. On the server side the number of different tiles is no longer endless and a caching is an option. Lucian Plesea extended the WMS protocol to a tiled WMS and speeds up NASA’s JPL OnEarth WMS server.

The new map pack (1444) provides all served maps from this capabilities file except the single monthly Blue Marble Next Generation. Most interesting is Daily Terra combined with the 2007 version of Blue Marble as background. Daily Terra is updated every day and the colors match perfectly BMNG.

This map pack requests 512×512px sized tiles, the performance is much better than the standard OneEarth WMS - zooming and moving means more fun now. Unfortunatly WMS overlays do not work with this projection (for now), but all point data (placenames, weather, tropical storms, videos, hotels, photos, … ) are displayed at the right place.