Ecoclimax

Much work has already been done on mapping wilderness and wilderness quality indices (WQI) across a range of spatial scales from global to local. This has been based largely on the concept of a wilderness continuum using spatial attributes of naturalness and remoteness to map levels of wildness ranging from least to most wild.  A global inventory of wilderness was first performed on paper by using information gathered from jet pilot navigation charts and further developed into a wilderness continuum using modern GIS methods and data. A WQI has been developed for the EU as part of a European wilderness register and Scottish Natural Heritage have used similar methods to map wildland areas for Scotland . The latter is based on methods and approaches developed for the Scottish National Parks which demonstrates how a relative value of wildness can scale between different areas with different absolute maximum and minimum values. Via geographical.co.uk

Deforestation in Brazil has decreased sharply even as production of soya & beef has increased. Via nature.com

Climatecentral.org developed special KML layers corresponding precisely to the elevated global sea surfaces projected to inevitably occur after 2°C or 4°C of global warming in our recent  scientific paper , published in the  Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the U.S.A .  Using science-based KML layers, scientists have created fly-over videos for many coastal cities around the world where 3-D building data is currently available in Google Earth. You can  download the KML  and make your own map. London, UK Washington D.C., U.S.A. See more at:   climatecentral.org

The study of plate tectonics offers an interesting view on our planet’s past, present, and future seismic activity. The larger and expanded map indicates the probable intensity of earthquakes that could happen in the next 50 years, starting from 2004. The green lines represent the earth’s plate boundaries and the shaded colors ranging from grey to orange represent the probable intensity of an earthquake in that specific region. Each red dot on the map represents a recorded seismic event since 1900 that had a Seismic Moment Magnitude above 8.5. Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue, the author of this map, explains that it is a matter of when, rather than if, that these endangered areas face some sort of seismic activity in the near future. Although there are vulnerable areas in middle Asia, the Middle East, and Europe, with very distinguishable seismic activity, such as Italy for example, most areas that have had either previous or predicted earthquakes exist on the edges of the Pac

Drained of colour, becoming ghost-like. This is what is happening to the world’s corals. The bright and beautiful are being ‘bleached’, from thermal stress. A great coral die-off is here. Vulnerable at the best of times, conditions have combined to create a global mass bleaching of coral. The world could lose 5% of its corals this year — more than 12,000 square kilometers. Via euronews.com Via 

This animation is a global visualization of the first year of carbon dioxide measurements (Sept. 2014 - Sept. 2015) from NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 mission. Each map represents a 16-day cycle and shows average concentrations of carbon dioxide between the top of the atmosphere and Earth’s surface. An increase in carbon dioxide in the northern hemisphere is clearly visible during winter, when trees are not removing carbon dioxide. In spring, the carbon dioxide decreases as trees start to grow.