What if you could take the entire planet, gather over 30 years of satellite data, and combine it into a simple application that can be used even on your smartphone? Well … that’s exactly what Google revealed. New features for its Timelapse allow users to zoom in to any location they want, viewing more than three decades of images.
The world at hand
It is true that we now have the whole planet at hand in more ways than one. Even about 20-30 years ago, most people would have had a hard time imagining this. The fact that you can use a common device that most of us carry in our pockets and approach any corner of the Earth and see how it has evolved in recent decades speaks volumes about how much technology and scientific observation have progressed.
You can browse your hometown, your favorite forest, a glacier, anything – in some areas, the data is better than in others, but you can see a timelapse from every corner of the globe.
“In the biggest update of Google Earth in 2017, you can now see our planet in a whole new dimension – time. With Timelapse in Google Earth, 24 million satellite photos from the last 37 years have been compiled into a 4D interactive experience. Now anyone can watch time unfold and witness nearly four decades of planetary change, ”wrote Rebecca Moore, director of Google Earth, Earth Engine and Outreach.
But the Google Timelapse feature also provides a worrying look at how we’re changing the planet.
Location after location, it’s the same story: the impact of humanity changes the planet, either directly (through deforestation, river management, city building, etc.), or indirectly (through climate change).
“Our planet has undergone rapid environmental change in the last half century – more than any other point in human history. Many of us have experienced these changes in our own communities, ”Moore wrote.
More than just eye candy (though it certainly is), the Google project could help researchers more easily interpret satellite data and help citizen scientists find trends in their own communities.
Several recent studies suggest that the expiration of time is in fact becoming a useful tool for research, and data could be especially useful in areas where local monitoring data are scarce.
To put all this together, Google used data from both the US Geological Survey / NASA Landsat satellites and the EU’s Copernicus program and its Sentinel satellite series. They also worked with Carnegie Mellon University’s CREATE lab, which helped process and display the approximately 10 trillion pixels in this database.
“Over two million hours of processing on thousands of Google Cloud machines to compile 20 petabytes of satellite imagery into a single 4.4-therapeutic video mosaic,” explains Moore – a process that used 100% renewable energy , in line with Google’s goals of reducing its own emissions.
Here is a list of some of the most amazing timelapses (full engine here).