Watch Earth Disappear In Time-Lapse Videos

This is a big week for viewing the effects of humanity on Earth from above -- in addition to a documentary film coming out this Friday, Wired has used NASA Earth Observatory images to created time-lapse videos of the Earth being de-Earthed.

You can see deforestation in the Amazon, draining of the Aral Sea, urbanization of Dubai and more over at Wired Science.

WATCH:

THE AMAZON

THE ARAL SEA

DUBAI

Comments

[JScott]

Too bad we didn't have wide use of sat photoimaging earlier....
Imagine watching Tulare Lake disappear, Los Angeles/Orange countie's sprawl grow,
and really old the formation of the current Salton Sea after the Colorado River overflow (but I guess
now one could watch it fade away like the Aral Sea)

[Patricia84]

Humans should really get over themselves. The Earth won't disappear, we will.

[Senseimilla]

Also, conveniently left out...

http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn10521-forest-growth-is-encouraging-say-researchers.html

Gasp!

No way...

[Kelly Ray]

three year old report

[Senseimilla]

And?

[Senseimilla]

What these videos fail to accurately represent is the running out of fossil fuels within the next few thousand years...

Without this anthropic forcing on the Greenhouse Effect, WHAT will keep our Earth warm during the next interglacial?

THINK people! Environmentalists are actually very "short-term" thinkers who are actually just as selfish as the people they decry as being "selfish"...

Once carbon fuels are depleted (very soon), we have no way of defending against the BITTER COLD that is INEVITABLE...

So... do we try to COOL the Earth right now and screw our ancestors over? Or should we have REAL debate about the pros and cons of anthropic forcing on Greenhouse instead of tossing out phony info about Ozone holes (that won't appear over Los Angeles, New York, or China for some reason, only Antarctica where the penguins are using all that hairspray) and calling skeptics "deniers" like the pope did galileo...

[marchamlin]

R
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a
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[RoadCrossingChicken]

R u d e

And, on SO many levels.

[AngieMom57]

An amazing presentation well worth the watch and time to share with EVERYONE!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jqxENMKaeCU&feature=featured

[YankeeCanuck]

How about the Salton Sea? Where's that, you say?
California!!

[Roguer]

How amusing and like the American press... publish the horrible foreigners are killing the planet... Dubai, etc.

If you wanted to be effective lets see how suburban sprawl has destroyed the North American continent... Let's see what the noble, superior American is doing with their green spaces...

Don't have to see it... I can tell you... pave and subdivide... built shopping malls the size of cities... pave roads so commuters can drive two hours to work and waste valuable resources, because you are too good to live in the city you work in... so typically American, morally superior to all the rest of the world... disgusting...

While the US built single family homes on some of the best farm land (90 acres a minute is paved over and forever removed from food production) and forested areas miles from their jobs... paved roads for individual vehicles... the most of the industrial world preserved green spaces around their cities and built public transportation systems...

No wonder the rest of the world despises the gluttonous jerks of the United States of A$$holes.

Cities should be built up not out...

http://www.sierraclub.org/sprawl/reports/

[geo493]

Most of the time it's not about arrogance, it's about affordability. Commuting long distances to work really bites and I don't know anyone who chooses to do that because of vanity.

Our problem is that there are a small minority of developers and corporations that design for maximum profit. The knowledge exists to build incredibly efficient and livable communities, but we are unfortunately overruled by the "gluttonous jerks". Short-sighted, self-serving interests is the current paradigm that ensures "success" in today's economy. And that definition of success espoused by the leaders of commerce is truly what's killing us in the long run.

I just hope you don't paint us all with such a broad brush. The problem is a greed mentality that exists everywhere, just more so in the US. But the problem is worldwide. And there are many here in the US that deplore it the same as you.

We need a serious paradigm shift. But I think it's more entrenched than just modern US policy. Humans have been destroying habitable living areas for ages. The Native Americans seemed to find a way to live in harmony with nature but it's so far removed from the European, Middle Eastern, and Asian ways of living that have taken over and dominated today's world. Sad, but here we are.

[Roguer]

Here is the deal... those developers would not be building them if the US consumer were not wanting them...

Your Wal-Mart would not be the largest retailer is the consumer did not shop there

The average American owes 112% of their yearly income... the fault lies with the American citizen... and no one else... you waste more land and water on golf courses than most countries own.

Your population has grown in the single digits yet your building of suburbia has increased by 23%... gluttonous consumption...

Farmland is productive greenspace... most farmland in North America was not forest but grass land...

You have no one to blame but yourselves... sorry the truth hurts... what is sad is that you are ruining the rest of the world in the process...

[Chitownfool]

The thing is building of all that farm land paved the way for suburbs through deforerstation. It's not like farms are clean what would be nice to also is the water ways being clogged with algee because of all the fertilizers and animal waste that is seeping into all our bodies of water! Face it we were all screwed way before we were even born!

[rex74]

some one sounds healous ha ha ha ha I love the USA please do us a favor and stay in whatever back water third world socialist dictatorship you live in

[Roguer]

Don't confuse disgust for jealousy...

BTW... I am a US citizen... and I am still disgusted

[BannedNBoston]

OswegoKayaker,
Al Gores research assistant thought that CO2 was not more of a greenhouse gas than nitrogen.
The people that worked on the computer model showing CO2 trapping more heat thought that the software was bad.
The earth is being warmed by a sun cycle. 1,400 years ago Norway had no glaciers. it had regular snow during the winter. Polar bears and peguins survived the warming 1,400 years ago.
The problem we have is coal pollution MERCURY LEAD OZONE NOX ETC ETC

[Bruupo]

"Al Gores research assistant"

Al Gore is a researcher now?

You completely blew any credibility you might have had with that clause alone. I guess the chain email you got didn't include the person's name.

"The people that worked on the computer model showing CO2 trapping more heat thought that the software was bad."

Oh..."those people"...and "that software"... which went "bad"...so glad you shared that chain email wisdom as well... That sentence is sub-par for even third grade fiction. I guess in your world there was one "supercomputer" staring at Al Gore and his "research team" from behind a giant two-way screen and telling them in its robot voice that it had just figured something out... "CO2=BAD". And then the team was all like "Green Team unite! Power of economy-destroying conspiracy...for some reason...".

All because some evil genius had been able to hack into "Computron 9000" after figuring out the password was Al Gore's birthday, no doubt.

As if molecular chemistry and climatology didn't already have TONS of different means of determining and projecting the effects of atmospheric gas concentrations here on earth, we also have every other planet in our solar system and their atmospheres to study.

[lazercat2008]

Better yet...let's start calling electric cars what they really are ... coal powered cars.

[Tommygun264]

Guess again. We don't use coal here in Honolulu. We generate our energy by way of a garbage-to-energy plant and natural gas. Wind farms are in the works on the north shore and there are state and federal tax credits for residents who install solar panels and reverse metering to sell the excess electricity generated during daylight hours back to the power company. My electric car has nothing to do with coal and the only oil is in the car's differential and rubber components. Doesn't it make more sense to work to change your local source of electricity than to demonize zero emissions vehicles?

[lazercat2008]

Calculating CO2 emissions

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Exit EPA disclaimer guidelines for calculating emissions inventories require that an oxidation factor be applied to the carbon content to account for a small portion of the fuel that is not oxidized into CO2. For all oil and oil products, the oxidation factor used is 0.99 (99 percent of the carbon in the fuel is eventually oxidized, while 1 percent remains un-oxidized.)[1.]

Finally, to calculate the CO2 emissions from a gallon of fuel, the carbon emissions are multiplied by the ratio of the molecular weight of CO2 (m.w. 44) to the molecular weight of carbon (m.w.12): 44/12.

CO2 emissions from a gallon of gasoline = 2,421 grams x 0.99 x (44/12) = 8,788 grams = 8.8 kg/gallon = 19.4 pounds/gallon

CO2 emissions from a gallon of diesel = 2,778 grams x 0.99 x (44/12) = 10,084 grams = 10.1 kg/gallon = 22.2 pounds/gallon

Let me pull out the trusty caluculator....hmmmm 22.2 pounds/gallon X 7 gallons of Diesel = 155.4 pounds actually.

[Roguer]

you forgot to mention that the diesel engine is not only more fuel efficient, it is more powerful than its comparable gas powered contemporaries. And that it was designed by the Germans to run just about any kind of oil... vegetable oil will even work.

With out it you would not be getting precious Kiwis from NZ at your grocery.

Do your calculations include the difference in refining techniques...

You are a very smug, demeaning person, I do not expect a respectful answer from you.

[lazercat2008]

I'm not fond of Kiwi. Can't get past the fur thing.

As you can see from the formulas, gas is a cleaner fuel. Wish I had the facts for veg oil. My point is, it was a snarky question and I gave it a true answer. You have to admit 155 pounds of CO2 from seven gallons of diesel is pretty scary.

[Radarman]

Can one of the experts on saving the earth please explain how a gallon, about 7lbs of diesel makes 23 lbs of CO2?

[lazercat2008]

Calculating CO2 emissions

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Exit EPA disclaimer guidelines for calculating emissions inventories require that an oxidation factor be applied to the carbon content to account for a small portion of the fuel that is not oxidized into CO2. For all oil and oil products, the oxidation factor used is 0.99 (99 percent of the carbon in the fuel is eventually oxidized, while 1 percent remains un-oxidized.)[1.]

Finally, to calculate the CO2 emissions from a gallon of fuel, the carbon emissions are multiplied by the ratio of the molecular weight of CO2 (m.w. 44) to the molecular weight of carbon (m.w.12): 44/12.

CO2 emissions from a gallon of gasoline = 2,421 grams x 0.99 x (44/12) = 8,788 grams = 8.8 kg/gallon = 19.4 pounds/gallon

CO2 emissions from a gallon of diesel = 2,778 grams x 0.99 x (44/12) = 10,084 grams = 10.1 kg/gallon = 22.2 pounds/gallon

Let me pull out the calculator here. 22.2 pounds x 7 = 155.4 pounds of poison

[lazercat2008]

Perhaps you are wearing your foil hat too tight Radarloser.

[Bruupo]

Lol, oh yeah, the oxygen, they always forget about the oxygen.

Two atoms of oxygen for every atom of carbon, pulled right out of the atmosphere, because that is, after all, what -combustion- is all about.

Thanks for taking the time to set folks straight, lazercat2008.

This argument is about as bad as the one Young Earth Creationists make about testing completely mineralized fossils for carbon 14...

[Jeff Rankine]

Very simple, when the carbon burns it oxides:

Oxygen - O2 is taken out of the atmosphere and combined with the carbon to make CO2. The new molecule has a greater mass and hence is heavier. When calculating the total emissions you add both the carbon from the gasoline and the O2 that you oxidized.

[lazercat2008]

There’s no doubt things are warming up on planet earth.

Here are the top 10 hottest years on record (average temp): (The earth is cooling?)

* 1998 - 32.94 degrees Fahrenheit
* 2005 - 32.86 degrees Fahrenheit
* 2003 - 32.83 degrees Fahrenheit
* 2002 - 32.83 degrees Fahrenheit
* 2004 - 32.77 degrees Fahrenheit
* 2006 - 32.76 degrees Fahrenheit
* 2007 - 32.74 degrees Fahrenheit
* 2001 - 32.72 degrees Fahrenheit
* 1997 - 32.65 degrees Fahrenheit
* 1995 - 32.5 degrees Fahrenheit

These are global figures and are based on average temperatures.

Scientists at the Mauna Loa observatory in Hawaii say that CO2 levels in the atmosphere are up almost 40% since the industrial revolution and the highest for at least the last 650,000 years.

The Amazon Rainforest has been described as the "Lungs of our Planet" because it provides the essential environmental world service of continuously recycling carbon dioxide into oxygen. More than 20 percent of the world oxygen is produced in the Amazon Rainforest.

More than half of the world's estimated 10 million species of plants, animals and insects live in the tropical rainforests. One-fifth of the world's fresh water is in the Amazon Basin.

Rainforests once covered 14% of the earth's land surface; now they cover a mere 6% and experts estimate that the last remaining rainforests could be consumed in less than 40 years.

One and one-half acres of rainforest are lost every second

[williamjgc]

Or then again perhaps not:

http://www.norcalblogs.com/watts/2007/08/1998_no_longer_the_hottest_yea.html

[lazercat2008]

Oh, what a suprise, pull up a debunker with no scientific training who just happened to work for the oil industry his whole life.

"McIntyre is, according to the Wall Street Journal, a "semiretired Toronto minerals consultant" who has spent "two years and about $5,000 of his own money trying to double-check the influential graphic" known as the "hockey stick" that illustrates a reconstruction of average surface temperatures in the Northern hemisphere, created by University of Virginia climatologist Michael Mann.He does not have an advanced degree and has published two articles in the journal Energy and Environment, which has become a venue for skeptics and is not carried in the ISI listing of peer-reviewed journals.[1] McIntyre was also exposed for having unreported ties to CGX Energy, Inc., an oil and gas exploration company, which listed McIntyre as a "strategic advisor." [2]He is the former President of Dumont Nickel Inc., and was President of Northwest Exploration Company Limited, the predecessor company to CGX Energy Inc. As of 2003, he was the strategic advisor of CGX Energy Inc. He has also been a policy analyst at both the governments of Ontario and of Canada. [3]At the 2007 Fall meeting of the American Geophysical Union, McIntyre gave a joint presentation on hurricanes and climate change with Roger Pielke Jr"--Soarcewatch

[lazercat2008]

In fact, the chart Dr. Michaels showed was a fraud -- that is, it wasn't what Dr. Hansen actually predicted. The original paper showed a range of possibilities, and the actual rise in temperature has fallen squarely in the middle of that range. So how did Dr. "Michaels make it seem as if Dr. Hansen's prediction was wildly off? Why, he erased all the lower curves, leaving only the curve that the original paper described as being "on the high side of reality."

The experts at http://www.realclimate.org, the go-to site for climate science, suggest that the smears against Dr. Hansen "might be viewed by some as a positive sign, indicative of just how intellectually bankrupt the contrarian movement has become." But I think they're misreading the situation. In fact, the smears have been around for a long time, and Dr. Hansen has been trying to correct the record for years. Yet the claim that Dr. Hansen vastly overpredicted global warming has remained in circulation, and has become a staple of climate change skeptics, from Michael Crichton to Robert Novak..."--New York Times "Swiftboating the Planet"

Seems the oil companies spend a lot of time worrying about global warming effects on their buisness.

[lazercat2008]

Denis A. Clement
Oakville, Canada CGX Energy
Director

• Founding President of CGX Energy Inc.
• 27 years of experience in corporate finance, law and management
• Chairman of Dumont Nickel Inc. and a Director of Argenta Oil & Gas Inc., both TSXV listed companies. Director of Vena Resources Inc., a TSX listed company.

• He is also a founder / board member of a number of private oil and gas and mining enterprises.

• B. Comm., Sir George Williams University
• LL.B., University of Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario; LL.M., London School of Economics, London, England

Oh, I guess the CEO of CGX Energy and McIntyre have something in common, they both worked for the same companies.

[realpolitic]

Your site is talking about temperatures in the U.S. and not world figures.

[realpolitic]

I think your temperature figures should be in Celsius and not Fahrenheit, but thanks for post!

[donnajr]

ask the I M F why all the deforestation . the I M F hold the property note on the Amazon Basin

[OswegoKayaker]

You can see just by the wild growth of poison ivy that CO2 is causing havoc with plant growth. You can also climate change by the bugs that don't get killed off in the winter anymore. Or the fish that can live further up the coast. You really don't need a scientist to tell you something is going on -- you just have to read, or fish, or be a gardener or simple observe for yourself. If Al Gore and all those scientists are right about it -- we all lose. By the time the people (who are probably the same ones who toss trash out of their cars) get on board -- it will be too late.

I grow a lot of things from seeds and in 1990 the USDA changed the hardiness zones to reflect the warming in the US. Every 10 years the Commerce Department's National Climatic Data Center calculates new U.S. climate changes and every 10 years the back of seed packets change their maps to change the hardiness zones and most places see a warm shift north. At one time crepe myrtle or concolor firs would not have survived this far north, and now they thrive. So, it really doesn't take a scientist to tell me what to believe -- I just have to look in my yard, or on the zone map on a seed packet.

http://www.arborday.org/media/mapchanges.cfm

[realpolitic]

Great post! Thanks!

[buckeyedave]

How can it be explained that in the last ten years CO2 levels in the atmosphere have risen, yet the the earth has cooled?

[mutised]

Read up on global dimming. Not all pollutants trap heat. Particulates reduce the amount of light getting through the atmosphere. This dimming has masked the effects of greenhouse gases. An excellent overview of the topic at:

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/sun/

[kate99]

global dimming is also going to be a factor in what we do to fix global warming as you say there is a very close relationship between both

[realpolitic]

It can be explained by the fact that it is not true and simply more conservative misinformation. You guys always swallow such misinformation hook, line, and sinker. Then you return to the same sources which misled you for more misinformation.

[patrickgarret]

Let's all pretend there is no climate change caused by man. Wouldn't it still be best to go green to create jobs here in the United States and NOT BREATH nasty city air? There is DIRECT correlation to asthma, cancer, etc. in LA compared to less polluted cities. Why are you so against a greener earth, a cleaner nation, more healthy for our children? Why do you love giving money and jobs to people who want to KILL US?

[luzcannon]

Yes! There is no need for the "debate" in order to act on common sense - don't put s**t in the AIR, or the water, or the dirt your food grows from. Remediate the damage we've done (plenty of jobs in reclamation and restoration), and design for the nearest thing to zero impact, or even benefit, that we're able. We're cancer, as seen from an aerial perspective. And this living, dying planet has mechanisms for our removal if we don't start acting responsibly, nownownow. One radiation treatment (disrupting the magnetosphere, for instance - we haven't been able to agreee on how thermometers work or if ice melts, let alone electrical pollutants) and the human plague would be in permanent remission.

[themodernleader]

The immediate, civilization threatening crisis is the population explosion. In nature when a species becomes over-extended, disease and starvation decimate the population back to an environmentally acceptable number.
With the advance in science and technology, the human population has literally exploded. Instead of using the findings and technologies of science to delimit population size, timid leadership and traditional knowledge have been advanced by charlatans to accelerate population to an alarming number. Only advanced industrial states and China through autocracy have slowed or retarded population. These meager measures are considered an admirable failure.
Probably, the problem of overpopulation will be corrected the traditional way, that is, the way of nature. There will be massive drought and floods,followed by massive famine and plague(s) accompanied by massive wars of horrendous death and destruction. When science and rationality are repudiated, nature intervenes to return the human species to a more basic level of understanding and existence.