The Discovery Channel will launch a new visualization tool for understanding the dynamics of global climate change. Wired.com brings you an exclusive preview of the new app, seen in the screenshot above. UPDATE (2/11): The site is now live at Discovery Earth Live.
Drawing on data from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the new site allows users to see nearly real-time satellite data of the globe's cloud cover, water vapor, and sea surface temperatures. Discovery and developer partner EffectiveUI have combined these elements to create "stories" around events like Katrina, La Nina, and a year in the life of the earth's biosphere. Users can also remix the elements of the biosphere into custom world views. All views can be added to web pages and Facebook as widgets.
Earth Live can also be used to fish through Discovery's content, which are mapped onto the globe. They even have plans to link researchers out in the field with users at their computers through the application.
It's a cool app, particularly the "stories" they have preloaded onto the globe. The Biosphere is particularly mesmerizing as you watch the world's land mass change in response to atmospheric change over the course of 2007. And as a proof-of-concept, it's exciting.Visualizing data helps me navigate from the personal to the global scale on these issues. Combined with new scientific datasets (like maybe Google's stockpile)
and a bit of futurism, visualization tools like Earth Live could help make a compelling case about taking action on climate change. Imagine if we could see how some societal change, like the deforestation of the
Amazon or a world wide switchover to compact fluorescent lightbulbs or growth in nuclear power, would impact the earth.
But Earth Live isn't perfect. My main complaint is that it's lighter on content than you might expect.
There are only a few featured stories, and a handful of layers for you to play with. I'd also like a little more freedom in the interface. Discovery and the developers are open to suggestion, though, and foresee improvements to the app.
