Google Earth Timelapse

Well this is the most depressing thing I have seen recently. Was interesting to see the South Australian bushfires one where you can see the land slowly recover after each fire.

qserasera2• 6 years ago

We need every child to watch and learn about this as they grow up. They will be fighting climate change for the rest of their life.

Polylactic_acid3• 6 years ago

Its like watching a very slow car crash you can't stop

qserasera2• 6 years ago

It's like watching people who dont care destroy what's left of the unknown on our planet for selfish ends. There is knowledge that humans will never access because of need and greed.

propogandist• 6 years ago

The player starts with how a glacier in Alaska, and it would be nice if they linked to content to explain what and why the glaciers are retreating

https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/abrupt-climate-change/Glacial-Inte...

adamjb• 6 years ago

That link explains why the glaciers retreated approx 10kya. It doesn't explain glacial retreat over the past half century. If anything the chart seems to show that past trends would have us on the cusp of exiting the current interglacial period, i.e. we should be seeing glacial advances.

mr-ron• 6 years ago

I like what they are doing but do we need a default .5 second for every year while the content is still loading? And seemingly no way to significantly slow it down?

Polylactic_acid3• 6 years ago

Works fine while you are sitting inside the google datacenter

aerovistae• 6 years ago

I laughed very hard at this comment

senectus1• 6 years ago

it will loop around and start again.

ekianjo4• 6 years ago

Typical cherry picking of data to focus only of the areas which show negative trends, while reforestation is a thing across the world as the NASA has previously demonstrated: https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/images/144540/china-and-in...

ian0• 6 years ago

Yeah your right no need to highlight deforestation anymore as some countries are planting trees now.

ekianjo4• 6 years ago

Yeah your right no need to highlight deforestation anymore as some countries are planting trees now.

Is that what I said? My point is that if you only show the areas where deforestation happens you are missing the picture where trees are growing. That's called negative bias.

xplune3• 6 years ago

The thing is, "increasing leaf area" is actually not the aim here. I'm from India and while the deforestation situation is not as bad as (say Brazil for Amazon Rain forest), it is still present in almost every country in the World. Agriculture does NOT mean "restoration". On top of that we should try to increase the restoration of native species of each country or every part of the world and not push non-native species just because they grow fast or take less attention while growing them. That destroys the ecosystem of that area because of something called as Invading Species. I'm not saying that every action taken is wrong or anything, but in this case deforestation outweighs reforestation by a huge margin.

rimliu3• 6 years ago

How many truly non-invading species there are if you wind back far enough?

ekianjo4• 6 years ago

in this case deforestation outweighs reforestation by a huge margin.

This is not remotely what is suggested by numerous studies. You can see in Africa for example deforestation and regrowth (in other areas) as whole make a balanced picture of tree biomass: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-05386-z

Of course there are countries like Brazil where deforestation is happening at a faster pace (mainly driven by poverty and poor agricultural efficiency in the Amazon), but that does not mean the whole world is following the same trend. That's alarmism.

freakynit• 6 years ago

It's a shame, and painful, to see humans behaving exactly the same as a virus killing it's host slowly...

juanbyrge• 6 years ago

It is very painful. We have this beautiful planet in the universe and we are just destroying it. We are just too primitive in too many ways. I am very concerned what will happen in the next 20-30 years. My only hope is that science can save us somehow.

xplune3• 6 years ago

The sad thing is there are numerous ways to stop or minimize this at this very moment. The fault here is very very few people are taking it as seriously as it should be. I just hope that people will get some sense before destroying this planet.

Jaruzel3• 6 years ago

My only hope is that science can save us somehow.

It's not about us. It's about the planet. Climate change only threatens us as a species. Once we're gone, the planet will recover. It's recovered from eco-collapse before, and it will do it again.

rimliu3• 6 years ago

Imagine if cyanobacteria were as conscious about the change they were about to introduce…

missedthecue• 6 years ago

To be honest, I was underwhelmed by most of the change. The greatest marvel was urbanization in China. Simply amazing.

jcun41283• 6 years ago

It is interesting how they expand land, even make "islands" out in the seas(?)

raister• 6 years ago

It's called "infrastructure" in Brazil. I read 30y deforestation effort. (I'm Brazilian, and quite ashamed right now)

divbzero• 6 years ago

Brazil is not alone in prioritizing industrialization over the environment. Coal in UK, oil in US, dams in China — just a few of many examples. That shame or sense of responsibility should be shared by many countries.

Jaruzel3• 6 years ago

Context is everything. Not every country is at the same point on the industrial timeline. The UK, US, Europe are post-industrial, and have the luxury to focus on greener energy options. Other countries not so much (yet).

simonh• 6 years ago

Countries like mine benefiting from deforestation are just as culpable, we can't blame it all on Brazil.

WilTimSon• 6 years ago

Infrastructure and urbanisation are pretty much synonymous with killing off plant life and green zones, sadly. I don't think it's a necessary trade-off but it's the easiest route to take and, historically, humanity is a big proponent of the easiest routes.

largolagrande• 6 years ago

Since we have been living in a global economy for quite some time now, shouldn't we actually _pay_ Brazil to preserve its forest, a resource that the whole humanity/planet benefits from?

burkaman• 6 years ago

We're trying, but it's harder than it sounds: https://features.propublica.org/brazil-carbon-offsets/inconv...

emaildanwilson• 6 years ago

Check out Dubai go from sand to city, plus all the man made islands pop up.

Jedd2• 6 years ago

Mines around Muswellbrook, 200km north of Sydney, NSW, AU.

Our commitment to pulling stuff out of the ground and burning it, in the face of all the science, is impressive.

https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse#v=-32.3917,150.9078...

slowhand09• 6 years ago

I would not argue against that fact. I also expect we'd be chimps staring at a black monolith had we not utilized the resources that abound on this planet.

Jedd2• 6 years ago

Probably.

Had we not started cooking our food over open fires, incurring significant damage to our health in the process, our societal and technological progress would also have been retarded.

However, that's not a sufficient or satisfactory answer to the question 'Should we still be doing this?'

trimbo• 6 years ago

Trivia: On the "Construction of the Bay Bridge" one, pan down to the Southeast a little to the Alameda Naval Air Station. In 2001 you can see the construction of the freeway set[1] used for The Matrix Reloaded.

Direct link to view: https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse#v=37.79184,-122.334...

[1] http://www.filminamerica.com/Movies/TheMatrixReloaded/Freewa...

ManuelKiessling• 6 years ago

No idea what you are talking about. Sadly, there weren’t any follow up movies to The Matrix.

me_me_me• 6 years ago

The second one was alright. There was a lot of interesting lore in it.

Ivoah• 6 years ago

https://xkcd.com/566/

lumberingjack• 6 years ago

As I have a 3440x1440 screen it just shows all the city and a bunch of the surrounding area I cant find it. I love that move scene went to see it with friend in theaters like 20 times. Every time I play GTA with 5 stars I remember Morpheus saying "never get on the highway"

Eduard• 6 years ago

Garzweiler surface mine

https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse#v=50.91082,6.4249,9...

vincnetas• 6 years ago

Crawling mine.

1horn• 6 years ago

I live in Mönchengladbach and the first thing I thought of, was looking at the Garzweiler mine.

It is worth to take a closer look. Here you can see how the Highway (Autobahn A44) is spared at the beginning until it is destroyed around 2006. It was reconstructed and reopened in 2018. It is frightening to see how the villages get eaten by the mine. At the same time you can also see the construction of the relocated villages Otzenrath, Holz and Spenrath north of the mine.

https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse#v=51.06266,6.47476,...

BooneJS• 6 years ago

While not as devastating as some shown here, 44.3171003, -91.2593236 will show you one frac sand mine in Wisconsin where they’ve leveled an entire hill and shipped it out west. They even built a plant and several new railroad tracks for it.

totetsu• 6 years ago

Check out your local library, or geological survey's website to see if they have historical arial photographs going back even further.

ncr100• 6 years ago

Good lord. The "Deforestation" presentation is horrifying.

What an effective use of technology, thank you EarthEngine team.

uniqueid3• 6 years ago

Thanks to the EarthEngine team, but only that team. Youtube is an Alphabet (Google) company.

Youtube contributed to the rise of authoritarians like Trump and Bolsonaro who scoff at environmentalists.

Youtube merrily signal-boosted anti-environmentalist conspiracy theories.

What a fantastic world we could have, through new technology. What a mess we actually have, partly because of leadership failures at Google and the half-dozen usual suspects.

fastball3• 6 years ago

No, the problem is that we forgot to teach (or in many cases – deliberately did not teach) people one of the most basic skills (critical thinking) and now we're surprised that this has come back to bite us in the ass.

djmips• 6 years ago

If you go to the Brazil deforestation time lapse and pan up to Northern British Columbia Canada you can observe a similar pattern.

https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse/#v=52.19,-124.26,8....

praveen9920• 6 years ago

Unfortunately, this is going to be the situation with Himalayan glaciers after new EIA bill India is planning to pass.

https://theprint.in/theprint-essential/what-modi-govts-eia-d...

KindOne• 6 years ago

USGS has a vast database of images including aerial, weather satellites, declassified reconnaissance satellites, and other sources.

https://earthexplorer.usgs.gov/

The datasets you pick from can be a bit confusing unless you click the (!) icon next to the names to figure out what they are.

I'll provide an example for looking at reconnaissance satellite images of Atlanta, Georgia in 1979.

Search Criteria (tab):

Find Atlanta, Georgia on map. Zoom in on Atlanta, Georgia. Click on a building like the "Fulton County Courthouse" or "Atlanta City Hall" (does not really matter, but somewhere near them).

Date Range: 01/01/1970 - 01/01/1980

Data Sets (tab):

Declassified Data -> [check] Declass 3 (2013)

Click "Results".

Click one of the results.

Example image: May 15, 1979 - https://i.imgur.com/DXYxWXP.jpg - 14,273 x 1,414 px

watersb• 6 years ago

I lived through the madness of Atlanta in the 1970s. The pace of sub urban development seemed to rival 21st century China in its consumption of concrete and steel.

jcun41283• 6 years ago

wow amazed pictures all the way back to 1980's hmm

ISL• 6 years ago

Landsat, I assume: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Landsat_program

jcun41283• 6 years ago

Thanks for that was trying to look around, as early as late 70's I see.

h4kor• 6 years ago

Coal Mining in Germany: 50.9121787,6.5066858

51.6423203,14.1907603

pixelbreaker• 6 years ago

This is total junk on a 10Mb connection.

MindTwister• 6 years ago

Atatürk Dam is impressive/scary https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse#v=37.57077,38.47465...

alex_duf• 6 years ago

Now I have the intro music of the Expanse in my head.

MiguelVieira• 6 years ago

I wonder if they can find any timelapses of nature being restored instead of destroyed.

sjcsjc• 6 years ago

https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse#v=51.4045,30.05423,...

Pripyat (Chernobyl)

maze-le• 6 years ago

The port of Rotterdam: https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse/#v=51.9137,4.1106,1...

It was already impressive in 1984. Also interesting is the slow migration of sand banks on the Haringvilet estuary.

wpurvis2• 6 years ago

Close to home for me, the removal of mountaintops to get at coal seams in Pike county kentucky:

https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse#v=37.47362,-82.4710...

The mines are abandoned now

Edit: updated link - zoom out, a lot of kentucky is affected by this.

skosch• 6 years ago

That's not Kentucky you linked to, that's west of Cologne (https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rheinisches_Braunkohlerevier)

wpurvis2• 6 years ago

oops, I'll edit my link

dognotdog• 6 years ago

There's also https://earthtime.org/ which shows the same satellite imagery PLUS all kinds of additional data layers (disclaimer: I work in the lab that created it)

petejames• 6 years ago

A street view timelapse would be cool to see. Many places would have 10+ years by now.

leptoniscool• 6 years ago

Shrinking Aral Sea: https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse/#v=44.88118,58.7657...

epberry• 6 years ago

Wow what an amazing use of technology. Painful to see so many examples of deforestation.

tudorpavel• 6 years ago

It's pretty impressive to see the Chernobyl New Safe Confinement [0] construction beginning around 2010 and its final movement over reactor 4 being completed between 2016 and 2017.

Link: https://earthengine.google.com/timelapse#v=51.38202,30.09999...

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_New_Safe_Confinement

homakov• 6 years ago

Berlin airport, haha

Google Earth Timelapse

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