Another Hot Year!

This visualization illustrates Earth’s long-term warming trend, showing temperature changes from 1880 to 2015 as a rolling five-year average. Orange colors represent temperatures that are warmer than the 1951-80 baseline average, and blues represent temperatures cooler than the baseline. Credits: GSFC Scientific Visualization Studio

It turns out 2015 was the warmest year yet according to NASA and NOAA! It edged out 2014 (the last record holder) by 0.23° Fahrenheit (0.13° Celsius). This continues a warming trend over the last 35 years but with 15 of the warmest years happening since 2001. NASA used surface temperature measurements from 6,300 weather stations located across the globe to create a global average surface temperature.

Since consistent records started being kept in 1880, the planet's average surface temperature has risen about 1.8° Fahrenheit (1.0° Celsius). With temperatures rising due to carbon and other gas emissions it reinforces the need for change. With the recent Paris Climate Agreement hopefully the world can work work together to accomplish its aims of keeping global warming below 3.6° Fahrenheit (2.0° Celsius).


Source: NASA

Lidar Massachusetts

I have created several more Lidar maps but this time they are all based in Massachusetts. The Lidar data itself was not as high resolution as the Utah data since they are a few years older but they are fun to look at. What a difference a few years make as newer sensors and methods are used. My favorites are probably the Boston Harbor Islands and Provincetown maps. Enjoy!

If you would like to know more about LiDAR, click here

Sources: Mass GIS; NOAA