Earth Observatory publishes many images of floods. The 2010 monsoon floods in Pakistan and 2011 floods in the Mississippi and Missouri basins have received a lot of coverage. But we don’t publish photo-like images of every flood, and many readers wonder why. The severe floods affecting China this month are a perfect example. So far, […]
Every once in a while we get satellite imagery that shows things that are hard to imagine, like floating rocks. It’s helpful to have a different persepctive, like this series of photographs collected by The Atlantic. Fantastic.
If you want to see global warming’s signature, look to the Arctic. Up north, the air is warming and the ice is melting. As all of that reflective ice goes away, the Arctic Ocean is soaking up more sunlight, further enhancing warming. Melting Arctic ice is also contributing significantly to sea level rise. For two […]
Science writers and producers from across NASA recently sponsored an Earth Day video contest for the public. The theme was “The Home Frontier,” and the idea was to create videos that expressed what NASA Earth science means to you. Many people don’t realize that one of our agency’s most important missions is to study the […]
On Tornadoes and Climate The Joplin twister, which a GOES satellite observed on May 23, has promoted many people to wonder if climate change has fueled the recent spree of storms. The answer: possibly La Nina (Reuters), no (Agence France-Presse), and not likely (Climate Central). Should We Use Levees to Build in Floodplains? The swollen Mississippi raises […]
Welcome to Earth Matters, the news and notes blog of Earth Observatory. And welcome to an ongoing conversation about our amazing planet. Earth Matters will be composed by the science writers, data visualizers, and web developers of Earth Observatory and of NASA’s Earth Science News Team. We are former journalists and scientists, communications majors and […]
In response to Map of the Ancient Mississippi a few of you left comments to the effect of “no one should live in floodplains.” It’s an appealing notion, but I think it’s unrealistic. Anne Jefferson of Highly Allochthonous published an epic post yesterday outlining the benefits and risks of building in a flood plain, and […]
Sticking to the flood theme, here’s a recent map from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers showing the predicted travel time for water in the Morganza Floodway. It’s a reasonably good map, with one big flaw: the colors are more appropriate for categorical data (such as a geological map of different rock types) rather than […]
While poking around looking for imagery of the 1973 flooding on the Mississippi, I discovered some fascinating, very high resolution aerial photography. Images of Morgan City—a community near the mouth of the Atchafalaya River that was damaged by flooding in 1973, and will likely be hit by rising water in the next few weeks. Both […]
Historic flooding along the Mississippi River gives me an excuse to show another of my favorite maps, from Geological Investigation of the Alluvial Valley of the Lower Mississippi River. Each color represents an old channel, dating back 1,000 years or so. Those that correspond to historical records are dated, while older channels are ordered according […]
