Is a Sleeping Climate Giant Stirring in the Arctic?

Flying low and slow above the wild, pristine terrain of Alaska's North Slope in a specially instrumented NASA plane, research scientist Charles Miller of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif., surveys the endless whiteness of tundra and frozen permafrost below. On the horizon, a long, dark line appears. The plane draws nearer, and the mysterious object reveals itself to be a massive herd of migrating caribou, stretching for miles. It's a sight Miller won't soon forget.

Permafrost zones occupy nearly a quarter of the exposed land area of the Northern Hemisphere. NASA's Carbon in Arctic Reservoirs Vulnerability Experiment is probing deep into the frozen lands above the Arctic Circle in Alaska to measure emissions of the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide and methane from thawing permafrost - signals that may hold a key to Earth's climate future. Image credit: Hugo Ahlenius, UNEP/GRID-Arendal

Mapping the Medals: Olympic Medal Distribution

Medal distribution across the globe on 2012 Summer Olympics.

http://storymaps.esri.com/stories/mappingthemedals/

Night Lights Map

Night lights of the world, 2012.

http://www.blue-marble.de/nightlights/2012

Antarctica Time Zones And Stations

Time zones and research stations in Antarctica.

 

 Click to enlarge 

Centered asymmetrically around the South Pole and largely south of the Antarctic Circle, Antarctica is the southernmost continent and is surrounded by the Southern Ocean; alternatively, it may be considered to be surrounded by the southern Pacific, Atlantic, and Indian Oceans, or by the southern waters of the World Ocean. (wp)

Produced by the Australian Antarctic Data Centre.

Distribution Of World Population

A interesting visualization of world population distribution around the globe.

http://workshop.chromeexperiments.com/globe/

OverlapMaps: Comparing places on Earth

This is a time waster too: OverlapMaps.

An Overlap Map is a map of one part of the world that overlaps a different part of the world. Overlap Maps show relative size.

United States and Europe:

Click to enlarge

http://overlapmaps.com/index.php