NEW PERSPECTIVE: Maps that change how we see the world
Digital Reporter
Wednesday, April 18, 2018, 4:17 PM - If you like maps you're in luck, because what you're about to read is a visual learner's dream.
Here are five beautiful maps that will provide you with some new insight on our incredible planet.
1. HISTORICAL HURRICANE TRACKS
Check out NOAA's Historical Hurricane Tracks, a free online tool that showcases more than 150 years of hurricane landfalls, through to 2016.
Users are invited to pan across the map and search for individual storms.
All the big hurricanes are logged - from Katrina, which barreled through the Bahamas and the U.S. Gulf Coast costing $108 billion in damage, to Sandy, the 2012 superstorm that virtually shut down Manhattan in October, 2012.
The landfall tracks are colour-coded, based on the severity of the storm.
2. OUR BREATHING EARTH
This incredible, real-time simulation by David Bleja tracks CO2 emissions on a global scale, as well as birth and death rates.
A variety of sources are compiled to create this simulation, and while Bleja admits the scale of the project makes it difficult for the information to be "100% accurate", he believes that the CO2 emission levels depicted are much more likely to be too low than they are to be too high."
3. GLOBAL POPULATION DENSITY, 2016
(COTTAGE REPORT: UNOFFICIAL START TO SUMMER IS AROUND THE CORNER. CHECK OUT OUR COTTAGE REPORT & START PLANNING!)
Humans may have conquered the planet but we tend to stick close to one another, judging by this map by Columbia University's Earth Institute.
4. EARTHQUAKES SINCE 1898 BY MAGNITUDE
From Visually.
John M. Nelson's map of earthquakes by magnitude represents the best of data visualization: It covers a broad time span, it's easy to decipher and it paints a sobering picture about the sheer power of Mother Nature.
Data was compiled from the Northern California Earthquake Data Center and NASA satellite imagery.
5. REAL-TIME LIGHTNING MAP
Track lightning in real time using data from Blitzortung, which is described as a "worldwide, real time, community collaborative lightning location network."
