A nice sankey diagram. Americans used less energy overall due to the combined effects of the economic slowdown and increased efficiency. News release. Thanks to Terrance Kean for pointing it out.
Recent blog posts on Russia’s summer of fire (Wired; Jotman) led me to the University of Maryland’s Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS) which provides online or Google Earth Based maps of fires from all over the world based on satellite data.
Fires in Russia and the USA in the past 24 hours:
FIRMs online map of the past 7 days:
Also, apparently the fires are emitting dangerous amount of CO2 and may be radioactive:
In: Environment/weather Graphic Design (general) Interactive Maps Science
4 Aug 2010A well designed and simple interactive of the 10 “great” whale species. It conveys images, scale, history, endangered status, and region all on one screen.
In: Environment/weather Graphic Design (bad) Interactive Maps Science
3 Aug 2010I think this project has been cursed by the data visualization gods. First, take a look at the Guardian’s interactive map below. There’s no legend to explain the colors, and the popups show a picture of just one animal (which they apparently included only because they happen to have a nice picture of it). The only information conveyed here at all is in the small bubbles at the bottom — which aren’t labeled and are presumably in percent of all marine life, but you can’t be sure because they don’t add up to 100%.
So I tracked down the original study, and their project map is actually worse! In addition to being quite possibly the most butt-ugly acronym ridden map I’ve ever seen, it has a bizarre infinity scrolling feature that allows you to view five earths at once.
But wait, there’s more: a huge interactive rotating globe that takes up 3/4s of the screen. See the tiny red dots on the map? – those are how you call up the related info that is squeezed into the small box on the left. There are other critiques, but I think I’ve picked on this poor project enough.
All of this is a shame, of course, because it looks like a very worthwhile project that has accomplished a lot of valuable work. Here is the Guardian’s related article, and the project’s press release.
My desktop weather app is displaying a cactus – that can’t be a good sign. If it makes anyone feel better, the whole world is burning up this summer.
Russia is getting it even worse. Reportedly as many as 300 1000 1200+ people have drowned trying to get away from the heat, and shoes are sinking into melted tarmac.
It’s not just our imagination — 2010 has been one of the hottest years on record:
Turns out we massively subsidize oil companies with huge tax breaks, despite their equally huge profits. (via the Big Picture)
I’ve posted some of these before, but Inspired Mag has come up with a pretty definitive list.
Ripetungi has a post about the design process that went into it.
I’ve seen a lot of headlines, but this chart brings them all together nicely — however, I can’t tell if the concentric arcs are the right proportion? (via)
MSNBC takes you through the 8 steps of weathering. (via)
Through ground and satellite surveys of land cover, the U. S. Geological Survey’s Gap Analysis Program has generated data that conservationists may be able to use to create and sustain habitat for wildlife.
The Gap Analysis Program is charged with figuring out which common species’ habitats may not be well represented by existing parks and conservation areas. The only way to do that is to mash up a bunch of data about species and land use (via)
In: Emerging Markets Environment/weather Global Economy Interactive Maps Politics Source: FT
9 Jun 2010Several interactive graphics related to the FT’s June 2010 “in depth” analysis of Africa.
A multi-part interactive. They’ve included one of my favorites: an animation of the effects of different Hurricane Category storms.
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