Monitor Regional Climate with Google Earth Engine

Create temperature+precipitation time series for a region

Photo by Luca Bravo on Unsplash

We have been struck by an unfortunate string of climate disasters in 2022. It is clear that we need to take immediate action. And before we act, we need data, especially satellite data. They can show us the actual changing Earth. With them, we can make data-driven decisions to promote conservation and preservation.

Google Earth Engine is one of the most prominent satellite imagery platforms. It is free for noncommercial use. In my previous articles, I have shown the readers how to make apps to monitor land use changes and vegetation. In this article, I want to show you how to create temperature and precipitation time series over a given region with Google Earth Engine. And I throw in the regional average elevation for good measure (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Temperature and precipitation time series for the city of Harbin, China. Image by author.

The code for this project is hosted on my GitHub repository here.