Mapping the Goldilocks Zone - the Precious Atmospheres of Three Planets

Everyone remembers the college "urban legend" of a competitive major's first freshman class, where the Professor standing from a podium before an audience of "wide-eyed" students, almost proudly boasts a sneering threat on their probability of academic failure.

It goes something like ... "For those of you freshman just accepted to [insert your prestigious University name here]'s elite major in [insert Engineering, Pre-Med, Physics or similar rigorous speciality here], I offer a prediction. It is based on historical fact. Look to the left of you, look to the right of you.  [Insert choice of 'impending doom' exclusion - One, Both or All] of you will not be here at graduation."

Perhaps surprisingly, this never made me think of the value of a good education, or even the value of a good teacher (possibly because for "my undergrad" I went to Penn State, joined a fraternity, and arguably majored in beer). But it did make me think of how lucky we are to have a planet is the "Goldilocks Zone". It's the "precious place in cosmic space" which resolves the childrens' story conundrum of "not too hot & not too cold"; a planetary zone that can support life as we know it.

This recent graphic from the UNEP/GRID-Arendal again reminded me of this blessing, our planetary orbital 'cradle' that brought us here today. 

In layman's terms, to one side of Earth, we have a "freeze-dried" planet, Mars - also called the red planet from its reddish appearance yet almost inspite of its prevailing surface temperatures. Martian surface temperatures vary from lows of about −87 °C (−125 °F) during the polar winters to highs of up to −5 °C (23 °F) in summers. Summary: Too cold.

To the other side, Venus. While named for a goddess of beauty, it might as well be called the "microwave" planet. Also once called Earth's "sister" planet, it has an atmosphere that releases so little of the sun's energy that its effectively "overcooked", with an almost constant surface temperatures of over 460 °C (860 °F). Summary: Too hot.

An there in "the middle" is our beautiful, brilliant "blue marble" of Earth, hanging in the same cold void of space yet somehow teaming with life. Just right! 

Now when I "look left, look right" on a planetary scale, I see what we as humans must avoid "at home" and also the future opportunity to "travel abroad".  Venus stands as a global warning of atmospheric change, loudly proclaiming "beware your fragile atmosphere". While Mars is a potential path of planetary colonization in the future - for if humans know one thing, its how to warm a place up! Still a foreboding message, but one I like to ponder (often with a beer) & smile.

Full credits:
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Sources	Calvin, J. Hamilton, Views of the Solar System, www.planetscapes.com; Bill Arnett, The nine planets: a multimedia tour of the solar system, www.seds.org/billa/tnp/nineplanets.html
Link to web-site	http://www.grida.no/publications/vg/climate/page/3056.aspx
Cartographer/ Designer	Philippe Rekacewicz, UNEP/GRID-Arendal
Appears in	Vital Climate Graphics
Published	2000

Mapping Equinoxes - Understanding Seasonal Change from a Perspective in space

This is both a nice textual and visual explanation of the changes in season.

Quick "Cut & Paste" Highlights:
" ....One of the most frequently misunderstood concepts in science is the reason for Earth’s seasons. As we experience the September equinox today .... we thought we’d offer a space-based view of what’s going on.... The shape of this line between night and day varies with the seasons, which means different lengths of days and differing amounts of warming sunshine...."

"....Of course, it is not the Sun that is moving north or south through the seasons, but a change in the orientation and angles between the Earth and its nearest star. The axis of the Earth is tilted 23.5 degrees relative to the Sun and the ecliptic plane. The axis is tilted away from the Sun at the December solstice and toward the Sun at the June solstice, spreading more and less light on each hemisphere. At the equinoxes, the tilt is at a right angle to the Sun and the light is spread evenly...."

Full article link - click here

Full Credits:

NASA images and animation by Robert Simmon, using data ©2010 EUMETSAT. Caption by Mike Carlowicz.

Instrument:

Meteosat

Related Readings:

1. Stern, D. (2005) From Stargazers to Starships: Seasons of the Year. Accessed September 22, 2011.
2. U.S. Naval Observatory Day and Night Across the Earth. Accessed September 22, 2011.
3. U.S. Naval Oceanographer Earth's Seasons. Accessed September 22, 2011.

Mapping Migration - a Visualization of Inflow & Outflows by Nation

As the election season matures and the Census decennial data slowing "leaks" out, there has been a lot of focus on America's changing demographics.  Below is a neat site that visualizes the migration inflow & outflows by nation.

Here is a screenshot (from peoplemov) of the US migration inflows, interesting how the drop off in count is dramatic after the Mexico-USA corridor is tabulated (oceans will do that to migration...).

"Cut & Paste" Highlights from peoplemovin:

"...the flows of migrants as of 2010 through the use of open data (see Data Sources below).... are presented as a flow chart that shows the connections between countries. The chart is split in two columns, the emigration countries on the left and the destination countries on the right ... [t]he thickness of the lines connecting the countries represents the amount of immigrated people. ..."

This isn't exclusively limited to US data.  The "world's top migration corridor" list makes me "muse" a bit.  It's fascinating where the BRIC nations (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) are "moving to".

Migration Data:

The World Bank Open Data
Bilateral Migration and Remittances 2010

Refugees and Asylum

Migration and Remittances Factbook 2011

World Population Data

U.S. Census Bureau, International Data Base

 

Data Sources - All the presented data are the latest available as of 2010.

peoplemovin is an experimental project in data visualization by Carlo Zapponi. Credits also go to FlowingData for bringing this site to my attention.

Mapping New Nations - South Sudan

While it happens more often than you think, new nations are not "born" every day.  South Sudan has joined the ranks of the world's newest nation, obtaining independence on 9 July 2011. Below are some images and links to the latest references and population of South Sudan.  It should come as no surprise, forming a nation is just the beginning (and no guarantee of permanence).  While I wish the South Sudanese well in their independence, here is a list of former sovereign states (Wikipedia - List of former states)...
CIA Factbook - Listing by Nation:


 
CIA Factobook by Country

Continent/Country Listing - CAI Factbook

CIA Factbook of South Sudan:


CIA Factbook page for South Sudan

South Sudan country page - CIA Factbook



Specific to population cartograms, here is a quick "cut and paste" of a interesting population analysis of the now subdivided region:



"The following gridded population cartogram shows the population distribution within and between these two nations, giving every person living in the region the same amount of space. For the much smaller population in the south it will be hard work ahead in building a new nation.... (Guardian news article - "South Sudan: a nation in the making" )

Sudan Population Cartogram  South Sudan - Views of the World

Full credits to Views of the World for brining this top my attentions. In particular special map creation credit to: The map was created by Benjamin D. Hennig and is property of the Sasi Research Group (University of Sheffield). PhD research project of Benjamin David Hennig, University of Sheffield supervised by Professor Danny Dorling, Dr Mark Ramsden, Dr Dimitris Ballas.