Five-Year Average Global Temperature Anomalies from 1880 to 2010
Source: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio;
data provided by Robert B. Schmunk (NASA/GSFC GISS). Groups of scientists from several
major institutions - NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), NOAA's National
Climatic Data Center (NCDC), the Japanese Meteorological Agency and the Met Office
Hadley Centre in the United Kingdom. These organizations tally data collected by
temperature monitoring stations spread around the world and make an announcement
about whether the previous year was a comparatively warm or cool year. This analysis
concerns only temperature anomalies, not absolute temperature. Temperature anomalies
are computed relative to the base period 1951-1980. The reason to work with anomalies,
rather than absolute temperature is that absolute temperature varies markedly in
short distances, while monthly or annual temperature anomalies are representative
of a much larger region. Indeed, we have shown (Hansen and Lebedeff, 1987) that
temperature anomalies are strongly correlated out to distances of the order of 1000
km. For more information about this dataset, see http://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp.
NASA's announcement this year - that 2010 ties 2005 as the warmest year in the 131-year
instrumental record - made headlines. But, how much does the ranking of a single
year matter? Not all that much, emphasizes James Hansen, the director of NASA's
Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York City. In the GISS analysis,
for example, 2010 differed from 2005 by less than 0.01°C (0.018°F), a difference
so small that the temperatures of these two years are indistinguishable, given the
uncertainty of the calculation. Meanwhile, the third warmest year - 2009 - is so
close to 1998, 2002, 2003, 2006, and 2007, with the maximum difference between the
years being a mere 0.03°C, that all six years are virtually tied. Even for a near
record-breaking year like 2010 the broader context is more important than a single
year. "Certainly, it is interesting that 2010 was so warm despite the presence of
a La Niña and a remarkably inactive sun, two factors that have a cooling influence
on the planet, but far more important than any particular year's ranking are the
decadal trends," Hansen said. (
link)
Global Agricultural Monitoring
Summary: This animation shows where the world's food is grown versus where
the world's food is consumed. The movie starts with global croplands and then fades
to the countries that produce over 80% of the world's wheat, grain, and cereal.
It then overlays the world's population density and then fades to show the countries
that are projected to double and triple their population by 2050.
Source: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center. The U.S. Department of Agriculture
(USDA) and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) signed a Memorandum
of Understanding (MOU) to strengthen collaboration. In support of this collaboration,
NASA and the USDA Foreign Agricultural Service (FAS) jointly funded a new project
to assimilate NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) data
and products into an existing decision support system (DSS) operated by the International
Production Assessment Division (IPAD) of FAS. To meet its objectives, FAS/IPAD uses
satellite data and data products to monitor agriculture worldwide and to locate
and keep track of natural disasters such as short and long term droughts, floods
and persistent snow cover which impair agricultural productivity. FAS is the largest
user of satellite imagery in the non-military sector of the U.S. government. For
the last 20 years FAS has used a combination of Landsat and NOAA-AVHRR satellite
data to monitor crop condition and report on episodic events. (
link)
MODIS Land Cover of Africa
Source: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio.
New NASA satellite-generated land cover maps are providing scientists with a detailed
picture of the distribution of Earth's ecosystems and land use. These new maps,
based on a global digital database of land cover types that is updated every 16
days, will help scientists better understand the Earth's climate and carbon budget,
through closer monitoring of water and land resources, including forested and agricultural
areas. These land-coverland cover maps were developed at Boston University in Boston,
MA, using data from the Moderate-resolution Imaging -Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument
aboard on NASA's Terra satellite. The prototype MODIS maps were created with data
acquired between July and December 2000, but future maps will utilize one year of
data. Advances in remote sensing technology allow MODIS to collect higher-quality
data than previous sensors, yielding the most detailed land cover classification
maps to date. They are also more current because the information content of MODIS
data allowed scientists to exploit more efficient automated methods for categorizing
land cover than was previously possible, reducing the time to generate maps from
months or years to about one week. Each MODIS land cover map contains 17 different
land cover types, differentiating among eleven natural vegetation types such as
deciduous and evergreen forests, savannas, grasslands, permanent wetlands and shrublands.
Agricultural land use, as well as several categories of land surfaces with little
or no plant cover -- such as bare ground, urban areas and permanent snow and ice
-- are also depicted in the maps. (
link)
Africa: Showing the Changing Seasons
Source: SeaWiFS false color data showing seasonal change in the oceans and
on land for Africa. The data is seasonally averaged, and shows spring, summer, fall,
winter, spring, summer, and fall. NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center, The SeaWiFS
Project and GeoEye, Scientific Visualization Studio. (
link)
This function on the dashboard is only available to partners in this project.
For more information, or if you would like to be partner,
please email phil.parker @insead.edu (remove the space before the @ sign).