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World & Universe

Oceania

G’Day from Oz

In light of the fact that we are spending 6 weeks in Australia I thought I would highlight some Captain Cook information. First, there’s Captain Cook’s first journey. Of 3. Captain Cook sailed into Bottany Bay, which a former mayor called, “the anus of Sydney”. How’s that for a place name? Here’s a great story map of it.

Ark of Taste

Great food. Maps of where it’s from. Fun site if you’re a foodie.

  • Australia: https://www.fondazioneslowfood.com/en/nazioni-arca/australia-en/?fwp_arca_regione=new-south-wales-en&fwp_paged=2

Tech

50 years of ESRI

Jack discusses a book, “The Power of Where”, and the greater than 50 year history of ESRI.

Data Science

End-to-end Spatial Data Science. 5 part blog on methodology.

Cool Drought app

ESRI’s new drought aware app:

Risk Map

Interesting FEMA risk map by Chenxiao Guo 郭晨曉 who has a series of really great maps woth checking out.

Climate Change

Landslide Seismicity

A 110 meter high, landslide-caused, tsunami causes 9 days of seismic tremors. An example of climate change impacting the crust of the earth.

485 Million Years of Climate

https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/2024/09/19/earth-temperature-global-warming-planet/

Climate and the Biosphere

https://news.stanford.edu/stories/2024/10/hidden-biological-processes-can-affect-how-the-ocean-stores-carbon

Tree obsession

Trees vs. grass. Is an obsession with trees harming our grassland?

AMOC

Is an Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC) collapse coming? We’ve known it’s a risk but has the risk been underestimated?

In an open letter published online Monday (Oct. 21), University of Pennsylvania climatologist Michael Mann and other eminent scientists say the risks of weakening ocean circulation in the Atlantic have been greatly underestimated and warrant urgent action.

Leading climate scientists signed an open letter warning about the collapse of the Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC), which includes the Gulf Stream. (Image credit: NOAA)


Antarctica

Thwaites Glacier Warnings Again

Once again alarm bells are sounding on the potential collapse of the Thwaites Glacier in Antarctica.

Climate Risk Real-Estate Index

Zillow has a new feature. A climate risk index on each listing. Zillow says 80% of buyers are taking climate risk into account. Hence adding they are adding this feature. he data comes from First Street Foundation index. But, it seems relatively not useful. Our address in Bend is not accurate as it says we are at high risk of flood. Perhaps, if the irrigation canal overflows. Others are also skeptical.

“They’re not great,” Keenan said. “Some places they work well, and there’s a lot of places where the uncertainty is greater than the value.”

But, I’ve seen usage drive data quality higher in many cases so once it’s out there, there will be specific pressure to improve it.

My address which is only near an irrigation canal, shows high risk of flooding. Not something we worry about.


Global Heating and Hurricane Helene

“Analysis shows Gulf’s heat that worsened Helene 200-500 times more likely because of human-caused global heating”

Asia

Mongolia

Nice article about the urbanisation of Mongolia in the last 24 years, even though 40% of Mongolians are still nomadic.

Uzbekistan

New Silk Road Cities

LIDAR mapping again reveals lost cities to archaelogists. This time along the former Silk Roads.

North Korea

North Korea sends troops to help Russia in Ukraine war

In the not good Geopolitical news front:

India / China

Border Conflict

De-escalating tension on China/India border. Some good news.

Ireland

Cambridge Seminars on the History of Cartography. Interesting upcoming seminar on the founding of the Irish Ordnance Survey. Ordnance Survey and military cartography in general is an interesting topic. Be fun to explore how much human’s militaristic ambitions have driven advances in cartography. Quite a lot I’m sure.

Spain

Scintillating Radon Map

Radon Map of Spain.

Mexico

Another LIDAR Find

New “Lost” Mayan Capital City.

US

Mapping Insurrection

It would be an interesting Heat Map of Jan. 6 defendants if it actually were a Heat Map. But it’s a cluster map of pins. Ok, maybe more of a cluster-fuck cartographically. Ok, that’s mean and I’m not sure what I would do differently with the data, but I’m also not sure what the current representation is telling us. If it were tied to more demographics it could be more interesting. Are they more rural, more urban, from white census tracts, clear GOP precincts, FOX cable subscribers, what?

Mapping the Inflation Reduction Act

This is a really great data and map story outlining where the money from the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) is going. Not a single Republican voted for it. But their precincts are getting the vast majority of benefit. Which is ok. That’s where labor and land are cheaper. But it is an absolute exclamation mark on GOP hypocrisy. Worth checking out.

Districts where a plurality of voters backed Trump have claimed around $165 billion of the cash so far, compared with just $54 billion in areas where Biden came in first. Of the top 10 districts that have attracted the most clean energy investments, nine are led by Republican lawmakers.

Where IRA funds are flowing. (Image credit: Washington Post)


APT makes National Geographic

As some may know, I volunteer for the American Perimeter Trail. Here’s a recent article on the APT from Nat. Geo.

NYT opinion

He really sums up how I feel about NYT political journalism. It’s why I’ve stopped subscribing to it. But, that does hurt my collection of Geographic news and info. The NYT has done some amazing geographically relevant web stories. So, I might be drawn back as a subscriber for that. But not now. Not until the US gains back some political sanity . So, maybe that’s never. Or at least until after the election. We’ll see. Luckily Susan and I will be out of the US political news-stream for the next 6 weeks. I hope you make it through without a lot of anxiety too. If you have other interesting sources of geo-info, please do send them our way.

Interesting places

Siberian Traps

It’s fun to explore places you don’t hear about often. Here is one about the Siberian Traps.

Grim Wildlife Survey Results

I think I snagged this before I unsubscribed. Hopefully you can see it.