If Car Companies Hadn't Lied About Diesel

In 2014 the International Council on Clean Transportation discovered that the diesel cars of a number of different car manufacturers exceeded legal levels for nitrogen oxide emissions. The result of diesel cars emitting higher levels of pollution than claimed by the manufacturers has been far higher levels of air pollution across the world. This has been starkly visualized by Da Standaard.

Last

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Follow the River

The USGS's Streamer map allows you to trace rivers or streams upstream to their source or downstream to their final destinations. The interactive map can create very dramatic visualizations of river watersheds, particularly when you trace a river upstream to show all of its tributaries.

Streamer is incredibly easy to use. Just click on a river on the map and select either the 'upstream' or '

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Where Temperatures are Rising the Fastest

Temperatures are rising faster in the Swedish town of Kiruna than anywhere else in Europe. So far this century temperatures have risen 3.4° C above the 20th Century average for the Swedish town. The town with the second highest rise in temperature in Europe is Fredrickstad in Norway, where temperatures have risen by 3.0° C.

Der Spiegel has mapped out where temperatures have risen this century

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The Global Crop Map

RTBMaps shows the distribution of different crops around the world. You can use the map to see where potatoes, bananas, sweet potatoes and other root vegetables & tubers are grown across the globe. The map also includes a number of socio-economic layers which allow you to view such things as population density alongside where the different crops are grown.

Select a crop from the map's drop-down

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Extreme Heat = Less Greenery

There have been a number of maps which have attempted to visualize the extreme weather that much of the world has experienced in 2018. In Mapping One Hot Summer Maps Mania explored weather visualizations from the Berliner Morgenpost, the BBC and the Washington Post. Another stark effect of the extreme heat in Europe this summer is the sharp drop in the continent's green vegetation.


The EU NDVI

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Belgium Air Pollution

20,000 Belgiums have taken part in a citizen science project to measure air pollution in Flanders (the northern region of the country). For the project volunteers installed air quality sensors on a street facing window of their homes. These sensors measured NO2 levels during all of May 2018.

You can view the results of the project on the Curieuze Neuzen Vlaanderen interactive map. The map uses

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Global Warming is Here

Global warming has already increased temperatures around the world. You can find out how much temperatures have risen where you live on a new map from Carbon Brief,. The map shows how far global temperatures have risen since 1850 and how much they are expected to rise by the end of this century.

If you click on your location on the map you can view a temperature chart showing the rise in the

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Life in the Year 2100

According to most current models of climate change life in the year 2100 is going to resemble the most dystopian visions of the future cooked up by writers of science fiction. We can look forward to a world which suffers from extreme heat, rising seas and practically unbreathable air.

For example, MIT recently modeled how climate change could impact on the future of air quality in the USA. The

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Twenty Years of India Lights

From 1993 to 2013 the Defense Meteorological Satellite Program (DMSP) took nightly pictures of India from space. The University of Michigan, in collaboration with the World Bank, has examined all 20 years of these satellite images to analyze how light output has changed across India during this time.

India Night Lights is a project from the University of Michigan and the World Bank to

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What Causes California Wildfires?

What do you get if you combine huge forests, global warming and lots of people? The answer is devastating wildfires. At least that appears to be what is happening in California.

According to The Guardian the extensive California forests are full of dead trees, nearly 129 million of them. Because of global warming the past five years have been the hottest recorded in California and the state has

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Mapping the Growth of the Soybean

In July Bloomberg explored how America uses its land. In Here's How America Uses its Land Bloomberg showed how more than a fifth of American land is given over to growing crops. They have now mapped how industrial scale factory farming has dramatically altered the types of crops grown on all that land.

In The Consolidation of the American Harvest Bloomberg maps America's massive shift from

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Is Your Hometown Getting Hotter?

It can be difficult to visualize global warming in a way that makes immediate sense. The New York Times has successfully achieved this with their new data visualization How Much Hotter Is Your Hometown Than When You Were Born?.

Just enter the name of your hometown and the year you were born into the New York Times' interactive. You will then be told how many days in a year, on average, the

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Yale Climate Opinion Maps

Americans now overwhelmingly believe in global warming. In fact there are only three counties in the whole of the United States where a majority of the population still believe that global warming is not happening. These counties are Emery County in Utah, Heard County in Georgia and Grant County in West Virginia.

70% of Americans in total believe that global warming will harm future

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The California Crop Map

The California Department of Water Resource has carried out the most detailed survey of crops and land use ever competed in California. You can view an interactive map of the survey on Stanford University's Where California Grows its Crops.

The interactive map provides a snapshot of where different crops were grown in California in June-July 2014. Different crops are shown on the maps using

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Mapping One Long Hot Summer

The Berliner Morgenpost has visualized the effects of the record breaking heat this summer in a series of satellite images. The record temperatures in Germany this year has silted riverbeds, turned green parks into seeming deserts and parched arable land.

In Drought in Germany - Satellite Image Comparison the newspaper has used before & after satellite images to show the effects of the extreme

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Saving Half the Planet

The biologist Edward O. Wilson argues that if we conserve half the Earth’s land & sea we will be able to save most of the planet's biodiversity from extinction. His proposal is a simple to understand concept which, if implemented, could save life on planet Earth. The Half-Earth Project was born out of Wilson's proposal to ensure that Earth's biodiversity is saved by protecting half all the

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Fracking in California

California's Getting Fracked is a story map created by Faces of Fracking to illustrate the impacts of fracking in California. The map takes you on a tour through some of the state's most high-intensity fracking sites responsible for some of the most serious environmental and health concerns.

As you scroll through the story the locations of oil & gas wells in the LA Basin are added to a

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Explaining Droughts in Taiwan

It rains quite a lot in Taiwan. However despite all that precipitation the country also often suffers from water shortages. One reason for these water shortages is illegal land use in reservoir catchment areas. CommonWealth Magazine has created a wonderful story map to visualize how such illegal land use around the Shihmen Reservoir has led to a huge silt build-up in the reservoir, severely

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Removing Pollution with Vegetation?

Around 1.4 billion kg of air pollutants are removed by woodlands, plants, grasslands and other vegetation each year in the UK. The amount of air pollution removed from the air where you live is dependent on the amount of local vegetation.

The UK's Office for National Statistics has created an interactive map which allows you to see how much air pollution in your area is absorbed by local

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Unsafe Waters in the Delaware River Basin

The Delaware River Basin watershed provides drinking water for more than 15 million people. Environment America's Delaware River Basin Map visualizes the potential threats to waterways in the basin. It allows citizens, activists and officials to find out whether their local waterways are safe enough for swimming, fishing and / or drinking.

Enter your address into the the Delaware River Basin

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