Introducing View2020 Climatology
2020 has been marked by severe disasters exacerbated by the climate crisis. Wildfires have ravaged Australia and the Western United States, severe droughts have wracked Central America and the African Sahel, and deadly monsoon floods have affected millions across South and Southeast Asia. Mounting environmental crises are taking a stark economic toll. Already this year, the US has seen $1 billion worth of damages incurred from the climate crisis. Despite increasing attention to the climate crisis and the temporary reductions in CO2 emissions resulting from the economic slowdown due to Covid-19, atmospheric concentrations of CO2 show no signs of peaking.
At Planet OS, we believe that data is the source of truth. Data is essential to telling the story of the climate and biodiversity crises. Moreover, environmental data has never been more prevalent due to the widespread dispersion of remote and on-the-ground sensors. It is now possible to understand in real-time how our environment is changing.
2020 has provided a unique opportunity to understand the impact that human systems are having on our environment, using the latest data technologies. As countries moved into nation-wide lockdown and economies recoiled, the data picked up on the clear skies, the drop in emissions, and the return of wildlife to urban areas. This is why we launched View2020 — an environmental dashboard that tracks changes to our environment in real-time thus capturing the effect that lockdowns are having on the environment.
With View2020, we charted the change in air quality as it fluctuated throughout the year. Dangerous gases such as carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, PM 2.5, PM 10 and sulphur dioxide all saw marked dips due to lockdowns comparing this year with last year. Expectedly, when countries reopened their economies, levels rose again.
Today we are proud to announce “View2020 Climatology.” View2020 Climatology allows users to track how the climate has changed over the last 40 years based on: average temperature, minimum temperature, maximum temperature, precipitation, and snow cover. These are essential indicators used in climate science for tracking change over time. Having selected a climate parameter to assess, users can then select the region of interest, the yearly time frame for comparison, and the season for comparison.
View2020 provides line graphs so that users can track the change over time for the country selected, and offers users a range of different decadal intervals against which to compare the average change. Besides getting an insight into a country’s climatic development, the system automatically compares data to the global average for the given parameter and timeframe.
The tool can also be used to follow global warming on an international scale. This can be done by choosing “average temperature” as the climate variable, selecting “global” for the geography and selecting the time frame that you wish to understand.
If we compare global average temperature from 1980–1989 to 2019, we see that average temperature has increased 1.19°C. This change, which may be imperceptible locally, is devastating in the long term on a macro level. Our climate has remained relatively stable for the last 8,000 years, and our ecosystems have evolved to suit the the temperature and the reliable change in seasons. The increase in temperature that we see over the last few decades is now altering the finely tuned ecological system upon which we depend.
The effect that climate change is having on our environment can also be derived from looking at the decrease of snow cover. To get a better understanding of the extent of this devastating trend, we can examine the climatic development of the 40,000 square mile Nordic island of Iceland. While in 1979, 87% of the island was covered with snow, by 2019 only as much as 70% of the island was covered with snow. This amounts to a total change of nearly 17% equaling an area of 6,584 square miles or over 2 million fields.
This change in Iceland’s environment is ultimately caused by an increase in average temperature of 3.55°C since 1979. Within this same timeframe, the global average temperature rose 1.22°C. This comparison ultimately shows that the Arctic regions of the globe are being hit the hardest by the climate crisis.
View2020 is built using the Planet OS Datahub, an environmental data service for data-driven applications and analyses. The Planet OS Datahub grants access to over 2,000 different weather and climate variables, with both historical and forecast data, global data and region-specific. Creating an informational tool like View2020 is just one use-case for the Planet OS Datahub. Geospatial climate and weather data has many applications for industries and organizations that are exposed to the elements and the Planet OS Datahub is currently in use by leading companies in the energy, automotive, and agricultural industries. For more information, please see www.planetos.com.
We routinely add new datasets to Planet OS. If you’d like to be notified when new data becomes available, follow Planet OS on Medium or subscribe to our email newsletter to receive future updates in your inbox.
