Ecoclimax

Many people think that top predators such as lions, tigers, bears, and sharks are the Earth’s deadliest animals. Yet, such opinions are omitted as not a single predator gets the top five of the world’s deadliest animals. For instance, lions kill just nearly 100 people every year, and sharks cause just approximately 10 deaths per year globally. These numbers are insignificant when compared to those of the top five deadliest animals on our planet.  For example, mosquitos kill more than 725,000 people every year around the world. Human deaths from mosquitoes are affected by infectious diseases such as chikungunya, dengue, encephalitis, fever, and tularemia. According to the World Health Organization, the deadliest of the mosquito-borne diseases is malaria, which killed about 409,000 people in 2019. The deaths are most common in Sub-Saharan Africa, where approximately 93 percent of the total global malaria deaths are recorded. Unexpectedly, humans are their own most dangerous enemies...

Drought is a complicated phenomenon that is challenging to monitor and determine. Hurricanes, for instance, have a distinct beginning and end and can easily be observed as they grow and move. Drought, on the other hand, is the lack of water. It is a spreading phenomenon that slowly creeps up and affects many areas of the economy and works on various time scales. As a result, the climatological society has defined 4 types of drought:  - meteorological drought (dry weather patterns dominate an area) - hydrological drought (low water supply becomes visible) - agricultural drought - socioeconomic drought.  The U.S. Drought Monitor explains drought combined across all time scales and differentiates among agricultural and hydrological impacts. Reddit user Andy Baker  visualizes U.S. Droughts, using data from the US Drought Monitor and R (ggplot2, maps, and gganimate). The script you can find here .

The American Lung Association State of the Air 2021 report found that despite nationwide efforts in controlling air pollution, more than 40% of Americans – over 135 million people – are still living in areas with unhealthy particulate pollution and ozone levels. In fact, 9 out of 10 urban dwellers are affected by air pollution. And this isn’t just the case in the United States, and it’s a global problem. But which cities are the worst, and which are the best for breathing fresh air? To find out, HouseFresh visualized the latest data on air quality in major cities around the world, revealing the most and least polluted cities in nearly every country, as well as in every US state. Researchers at HouseFresh extracted city-level air quality data from the latest 2020 World Air Quality report by IQAir . Data in hand, the team identified the best and worst cities and towns for clean air across nearly 100 countries and across all 50 US states. Cities and towns were ranked on the average valu...

The gray squirrel is native to the United States and was introduced to parks in Britain and Ireland. They caused the local extinction. The maps below show the ranges of Red Squirrel and Grey Squirell in 1945 and 2010 in Great Britain and Ireland. Red Squirrel Grey Squirrel The Grey Squirrel and the red squirrel are not directly opposing, and brutal conflict among these species is not a factor in the drop in red squirrel populations. But, the Grey Squirrel arrives to be capable of reducing the red squirrel population due to the following causes: - Grey Squirrel transfers a disease, the squirrel parapoxvirus, that does not develop to influence their health but will frequently kill the red squirrel. In 2008, the number of red squirrels at Formby in England had decreased by 80% because of this disease, though the population is presently growing. - Grey Squirrel can better digest acorns, while the red squirrel cannot efficiently obtain the proteins and fats in acorns. - When the red squirre...

Reddit user heresacorrection visualized carbon dioxide levels over the last 300 thousand years, using National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration data . The graph shows the amount of CO2 estimated in the atmosphere (units: parts per million). Outside of a few hundred years ago, the rest is gathered from ice cores.   On the graph before the peak caused by the current rapid change results from human activity, you can see another rise in the Bølling–Allerød interstadial period (126440 BC). The Bølling–Allerød was a sudden warm and moist interstadial period during the last stages of the last glacial period (14,690 - 12,890 BP). During this period, estimates of carbon dioxide rise are 20–35 ppmv within 200 years, a rate less than 29–50 percent compared to the anthropogenic global warming sign from the past fifty years. Data gathered from the Gulf of Alaska show abrupt sea-surface warming of about three °C (in less than 90 years). Global sea level raised about 16 meters throughou...

Photographer Lior Patel has spent 7 months interested in the daily rhythms of sheep herds. He documented the flock's grazing process in a fantastic timelapse that exhibits the animals racing across the rural landscape in the Peace Valley region (Israel).  Lior Patel tried to understand the difficulty of the herd's elasticity during the movement, dispersal through grazing, how it unites into one compact pack towards a return from pasture, and intersecting roads and paths.