Comments on: Matters of Scale, and Why They Matter

By: Raymond Williams

Raymond Williams — Thu, 28 Mar 2013 19:40:19 +0000

From Australia, we would say visualisation, and express the data per Capita. That is divide a spatial population layer into your air quality pollution spatial layer. Thanks Dr Allen.

By: Wiebina Heesterman

Wiebina Heesterman — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 20:05:30 +0000

Just a week ago the Guardian newspaper published an article about pollution in UK cities.photochemical smog with a high NO2 content. The article warned about the harm to asthma sufferers and the damage to children’s lungs. That same day I happened to see long rows of cars waiting at the gate of the local school. Parents don’t realise that children inside cars are exposed to polluted air as much as children in the street.
The UK government is being taken to the Supreme Court by ClientEarth, an organisation of activist environmental lawyers over its failure to meet European laws on nitrogen pollution. Jesse’s map makes it very visible. I would love to show it to those who think they protect their children by driving them everywhere. However, there was only a tiny strip of the UK visible on the map.

By: Jesse Allen

Jesse Allen — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 13:53:25 +0000

Well, working in the Earth Sciences myself, I must confess to a bias in favour of studying the Earth. NASA has been very active in research focused on studying and understand the Earth for decades now. It’s just not the only thing NASA does and does well… and there is a certain appeal that makes a satellite orbiting Mars making spectacular measurements while a remote control rover rolls around on the ground to provide highly detailed local measurements compared to, say, a Landsat observation of the Earth and a field geologist making highly detailed local measurements of the same area. Both seem really important to do and do well, within the fiscal realities of what can be done. Mars research is being done in conjunction with studies of the Earth, not at the expense of neglecting the Earth. Both deserve our attention.

By: Jesse Allen

Jesse Allen — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 13:39:32 +0000

Yes, it would be. We’re working with some scientists on some future visualizations of NO2 data from the OMI instrument based on their research. In this instance, we were focused on the ship tracks, which are most dramatic in the Indian Ocean, so chose projections centered on that area of interest. To talk about global land-based emissions, we’d give a global view, not just one hemisphere.

By: Jesse Allen

Jesse Allen — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 13:37:16 +0000

Thank you! The Earth Observatory is a news agency, reporting on science rather than generating science, so we’d be reporting on that work when the research gets done rather than going out and actively seeking health research partners. That said, health officials do use these data and similar ground-based observations in their work.

By: Jesse Allen

Jesse Allen — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 13:34:54 +0000

NO2 breaks down pretty quickly (it’s highly reactive), so it doesn’t tend to drift from its source far before breaking down into something else. So it’s not (much of) a question of atmospheric circulation. Industrialization in China has lend to a huge increase in emissions. If we did a comparison from 2005 to 2012, you’d see quite a few changes, and the greatest increases have been in China.

By: Sergio A. Prado

Sergio A. Prado — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 09:47:17 +0000

NO2 concentration is for sure alarming not only in Asia, Europe and AFrica but in Amerca and Oceania.

My question regards all those scientific projects that invest milions to search water on Mars, but we do not invest THE SAME MONIES to protect all the physical forms of OUR WATER ON EARTH. It means TO TAKE CARE OF our oceans, the artic and antartic ices, our rivers and all sources of our drinkable water… Suppose we discover water on Mars and we loose water on Earth, how will be transported to the earth that water?
This assimetry to protect our earth before to try do discover water on our galaxy reflects that our scientists and politicians maybe are a little bit BLIND when they are not able to PUT IN ACT NEW POLITICAL AND FINANCIAL drives to INVERT the tendence to loose the treasure that we still have!
Best regards my blind friends!

By: Azad Abul Kalam

Azad Abul Kalam — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 07:58:19 +0000

It’s a amazing documents for us and also for our next generation.
This is right time to do something to protect our globe.
I’m great full to Jesse.
Thank you Jesse and thanks a lot to NASA

By: Richard Swann

Richard Swann — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 03:59:05 +0000

I wonder, is the concentration over eastern China due to weather conditions (no wind) or is that due to the sheer volume of emissions?

By: Rahul Goswami

Rahul Goswami — Wed, 27 Mar 2013 02:56:05 +0000

Dear Jesse, very good entry. The explanations about the scale bar colour should be helpful to all those who similarly need to show relative change over time. I’d like to see EO do a comparison, using this NO2 data set, of industrialisation and respiratory health impacts. Perhaps The Lancet will be interested.