Geography graduate students Forest Cannon and Andrew Thorpe were both selected for the NASA Earth and Space Science Fellowship (NESSF) Program - 2013. NASA received a total of 330 applications in Earth Science Research and selected 56 for awards (17%); Forest and Andrew were the only UCSB applicants selected (details and list of awardees here).

According to the NESSF web site, Earth Science Research, Heliophysics Research, Planetary Science Research, and Astrophysics Research are the four research programs of the Science Mission Directorate (SMD) at NASA Headquarters. These four SMD science divisions make respective selection of applications for the award on a competitive basis. Criteria for evaluation included: (a) the scientific merit of the proposed research; (b) the relevance of the proposed research to NASA’s objectives in Earth or space science; and (c) academic excellence based upon an applicant's transcripts, the letter of recommendation by the student's academic advisor, and the degree to which it supported the proposed research. Evaluation was conducted via either mail or panel review, or both, and by the relevant expertise in the science divisions of SMD.

The purpose of the NESSF is to ensure continued training of a highly qualified workforce in disciplines required to achieve NASA’s scientific goals. Awards resulting from the competitive selection are made in the form of training grants to the respective universities and educational institutions, with the faculty advisor serving as the principal investigator. NESSF awards are made initially for one year and may be renewed for no more than two additional years, contingent upon satisfactory progress, as reflected in academic performance, research progress, and recommendation by the faculty advisor, and the availability of funds. An award is $30,000 per annum, including $24,000 student stipend and an allowance of up to $6,000, consisting of $3,000 for student expenses and $3,000 for university expenses.

Forest's proposed research is on “Western Himalaya Climate Variability: The Recent Trends In Large-Scale Circulation and Local Precipitation Impacts” (Advisor, Leila Carvalho). Andrew will pursue research related to “Mapping Local Greenhouse Gas Emissions Using Airborne Imaging Spectrometry” (Advisor, Dar Roberts). Kudos and all the best to both of them!

Editor’s comment: Many thanks to Leila Carvalho for the “heads up” regarding these prestigious awards.

“Russia has ordered the urgent evacuation of the 16-strong crew of a drifting Arctic research station after the ice floe that hosts the floating laboratory began to disintegrate, officials said on Thursday. Natural Resources and Ecology Minister Sergei Donskoi set a three-day deadline to draft a plan to evacuate the North Pole-40 floating research station. ‘The destruction of the ice has put at risk the station's further work and life of its staff,’ the ministry said in a statement.

The station is currently home to 16 personnel including oceanologists, meteorologists, engineers and a doctor. It conducts meteorological research, monitors environmental pollution and conducts a number of tests. If the situation is not addressed, it may also result in the loss of equipment and contaminate the environment near Canada's economic zone where the station is currently located, the ministry added.

The floating research laboratory will be relocated to Bolshevik Island in the Russian Arctic with the help of an ice-breaker. ‘The ice floe has crumbled into six pieces,’ said Arkady Soshnikov, spokesman for the Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute. ‘The people are not at risk but it is not possible to work in these conditions. The ice may disintegrate so a decision has been taken to evacuate’ the station, he told AFP. The station was located at 81 degrees North and 135 degrees West as of early morning Wednesday, May 22.

Scientists point to increasing signs of global warming in the Arctic, which is being significantly affected by climate change. The UN weather agency said this month that the Arctic's sea ice melted at a record pace in 2012, the ninth-hottest year on record. Vladimir Sokolov, who oversees the floating station at the Saint Petersburg-based Arctic and Antarctic Research Institute, said the ice was disintegrating due to climate change. ‘This has made the Arctic research significantly harder - the ice has become thinner and the weather conditions more difficult,’ he told AFP. He said it was important to continue studying the Arctic. ‘The Arctic Ocean, just like the Antarctic, is the 'refrigerator' of the Earth. It significantly affects the climate of our planet.’ ‘If this 'refrigerator' has a glitch and we do not know about it, it leads to mistakes in forecasts and affects the quality of decision-making on entire territories.’

Russia, which has always prided itself on its exploration of the energy-rich region, established the first floating station, the North Pole-1, in 1937. Funding for floating stations dried up after the collapse of the Soviet Union but resumed under strongman Vladimir Putin who has said Russia intends to expand its presence in the Arctic. The first floating Arctic station of post-Soviet Russia, the North Pole-32, was put together in 2003. The crew of that station had to be rescued when the ice floe beneath it broke up in 2004. At a meeting with the crew of the rescued North Pole-32 station, President Putin stressed the importance of the Arctic research: ‘For us, for such a northern country like Russia communications in the North are very important both economically and militarily,’ Putin said in 2004.

Russia alarmed its Arctic neighbours, including Canada and Norway, when it planted a flag on the ocean floor under the North Pole in 2007 in a symbolic staking of its claim over the region. The five Arctic nations that also include Denmark and the United States are locked in a tight race to gather evidence to support their claims amid reports that global warming could leave the region ice-free by 2030” (source).

During my life, I have lived in a few countries and observed different cultures. Over the past few years, I have missed the opportunity to travel to somewhere I’ve never been before. As the new year rolled around for 2013, I casually started to research on where I would like to go. The minimum requirements I needed was to learn a new skill and to hold my interest for more than a day. South Korea was a place I had never been, and, suddenly, my curiosity started to grow. Fortunately, a conference was being held at the perfect time of the year with the least amount of impact on my life. I wanted to learn more about software technology developed in South Korea and how it has enhanced their lifestyle. I started to hear about threats from North Korea; however, it did not faze me. I had lived in a country with martial law and tight security before and knew what I could expect. I was traveling alone without fear. All well and good, I would advise anyone who wants to take a trip to prepare as much as you can - I spent months researching - and feel free to use some of the tips that I have on Travel Preparations.

I attended a conference on Tech startup companies in Seoul, South Korea called BeLaunch 2013. beLAUNCH is the flagship conference of Korean startup media platform beSUCCESS to bring together the global startup and technology community and provide a platform for Korean startups to showcase their products and services. The conference was at the COEX mall in the now famous Gangnam-gu district of Seoul.

My constant curiosity about foreign technology companies and their journey to success was my driving force behind this trip. I learned quite a bit about what inspired the startup companies at the conference and talked with some of the individuals demonstrating their talent and software. My observations of the software drew quite a range of thought provoking questions. Such as:

1. Would this software assist in an educational learning environment?
2. If this software is set to go global, how would the language translation be handled?
3. Does the website of the startup company share enough content for consumers to gain interest in their product?
4. Would I be able to use this software with my own projects?
5. How would the startup company show a profit and how long would it take?

Many of the startup companies had great ideas, but were not ready to launch their product as some of the product launches were to be done within six months to a year in the future. This interview is interesting as it broadens the scope of “Global Startups”, read the [Exclusive] Interview with Shakr CEO David Lee, Winner Of beLAUNCH2013 Startup Battle.

Be warned! Most of the taxi drivers do not speak English. Before my trip, I took a picture of the hotel I was going to be staying at for the next 12 days. I had to show the picture to the taxi driver upon my arrival to Seoul. The hotel was not on the map and the taxi driver had to stop at a couple of places and ask the merchants where the hotel was located. After my first night in the hotel, I asked for a couple of business cards to show to taxi drivers (as it had the correct address for inserting into the taxi’s navigation system). The Taxi company I began to prefer was the “International Taxi.” On my last day at Seoul, I rented a taxi for three hours (with a driver who knew some English) to take me anywhere I wanted to take pictures. The time flew by, and I was able to see more of Seoul in three hours than some tourists get to see in a week. View some photos from the taxi ride.

After the three day conference, I walked around Insadong, the heart of Seoul. I picked up a few souveniers to bring back to the U.S. One of my favorite items to photograph is street signs. Pictures of street signs allow me to look on the map and indicate where I have been. Due to digital photography, it is easier to inform someone where I was (and when) on a certain time period of my visit. The meta tags represent a great timetable of events accompanied by the GPS feature of my camera. However, there were more than just street signs; some street signs were digital with LED lights functioning as a scrolling marquee. Plus, there were LED backlit billboards on the sides of buildings.

The food in Seoul South Korea was incredible. Professor Kun Lee, (who was a visitor to the Spatial Center in 2007–2008) had dinner with me at the Korean restaurant in the lower level of the Center Mark Hotel. I tried many wonderful dishes, including Korean barbecue beef. The visit with Kun Lee was wonderful. When I first arrived, I went to a Japanese restaurant, where I enjoyed udon, served with kimchi, radish, and salad.

There are many things I didn’t get to do (maybe plan for a second trip), such as:

1. Explore T.um. Run by Korea’s largest telecommunications provider, SK Telecom, T.um offers an amazing look at the technology we’ll be using in the very near future
2. Go to a Jjimjilbang (찜질방) – a Korean Spa
3. Drink Soju - coffee houses were all over the place, but I could not find any eatries with Soju (rice wine)/, only coffee houses.
4. Do everything on this list of 101 things to do in Seoul

Editor's note: Many thanks to Guylene for sharing her adventure with us!

"The 2013 Moore tornado was a violent tornado that occurred on the afternoon of May 20, 2013. The EF5 [the Enhanced Fujita scale] rates the strength of tornadoes in the United States and Canada, based on the damage they cause. A tornado with winds estimated at 210 miles per hour (340 km/h) impacted Moore, Oklahoma, and adjacent areas, killing at least 24 people, including 9 children, and injuring more than 240 others...The tornado was part of a larger weather system that had produced several other tornadoes over the previous two days. The tornado touched down at 2:45 p.m. CDT (19:45 UTC) west of Newcastle, staying on the ground for approximately 50 minutes over a 17-mile (27 km) path, crossing through a heavily populated section of Moore. The tornado was 1.3 miles (2.1 km) wide at its peak.

On May 20, a prominent central upper trough moved eastward with a lead upper low pivoting over the Dakotas and Upper Midwest region. A Southern stream shortwave trough and a moderately strong polar jet moved east-northeastward over the southern Rockies to the southern Great Plains and Ozarks area, with severe thunderstorms forming during the peak hours of high temperatures. With the influence of moderately strong cyclonic flow aloft, the air mass was expected to become unstable across much of the southern Great Plains, Ozarks, and middle Mississippi Valley by the afternoon. Dewpoints in the mid to upper 60s °F and some lower 70s °F were common within a broad warm sector ahead of a cold front extending from an eastern Dakota surface low southwestward to near the Kansas City area and western Oklahoma, and ahead of a dry line extending from southwest Oklahoma southward into western north and west-central Texas. The National Weather Service issued a warning 16 minutes before the tornado hit - 3 minutes earlier than average. The area affected is located in Tornado Alley, a colloquial term for the area of the United States where tornadoes are most frequent.

At 2:40 p.m. CDT, a tornado warning was issued on a severe thunderstorm approaching the Oklahoma City metropolitan area. At 2:45 p.m. CDT, an EF0 tornado touched down roughly 4.4 mi (7.1 km) west of Newcastle in Grady County. Tracking northeast, the system rapidly intensified, attaining EF4 intensity within ten minutes of touching down. By 3:01 p.m. CDT, a second more strongly worded warning was issued for the area. A tornado emergency was declared for southern Oklahoma City and Moore as storm spotters confirmed a large and violent tornado approaching the area. After crossing the Interstate 44 Bridge over the Canadian River, the tornado turned east and tracked directly through Moore...The storm abruptly dissipated about 4.8 mi (7.7 km) east of Moore around 3:35 p.m. CDT. Overall, the tornado was on the ground for approximately 50 minutes along a 17 mi (27 km) track.

Most areas in the path of the storm suffered catastrophic damage. Entire subdivisions were obliterated and houses flattened in a large swath of the city. The Oklahoma Department of Emergency Management said about 2,400 homes were damaged and 10,000 people have been affected. Witnesses said it more closely resembled "a giant black wall of destruction" than a typical twister…With 24 fatalities, it was the deadliest U.S. tornado since the Joplin, Missouri tornado that killed 158 in 2011, according to the National Weather Service" (source; before and after photos here).

“Several meteorologists contacted by The Associated Press used real time measurements to calculate the energy released during the storm's 40-minute life span. Their estimates ranged from 8 times to more than 600 times the power of the Hiroshima bomb, with more experts at the high end. Their calculations were based on energy measured in the air and then multiplied over the size and duration of the storm. An EF5 tornado has the most violent winds on Earth, more powerful than a hurricane. The strongest winds ever measured were the 302 mph reading, measured by radar, during the EF5 tornado that struck Moore on May 3, 1999, according to Jeff Masters, meteorology director at the Weather Underground.

It's a combination of geography, meteorology, and lots of bad luck, experts said. ‘Tornadoes are perhaps the most difficult things to connect to climate change of any extreme,’ said NASA climate scientist Tony Del Genio. ‘Because we still don't understand all the factors required to get a tornado’” (source).

The International Energy Agency provided the following Press Release with the above title on May 14:

The supply shock created by a surge in North American oil production will be as transformative to the market over the next five years as was the rise of Chinese demand over the last 15, the International Energy Agency (IEA) said in its annual Medium-Term Oil Market Report (MTOMR) released today. The shift will not only cause oil companies to overhaul their global investment strategies, but also reshape the way oil is transported, stored and refined.

According to the MTOMR, the effects of continued growth in North American supply – led by US light, tight oil (LTO) and Canadian oil sands – will cascade through the global oil market. Although shale oil development outside North America may not be a large-scale reality during the report’s five-year timeframe, the technologies responsible for the boom will increase production from mature, conventional fields – causing companies to reconsider investments in higher-risk areas.

In virtually every other aspect of the market, developing economies are in the driver’s seat. This quarter, for the first time, non-OECD [Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development] economies will overtake OECD nations in oil demand. At the same time, massive refinery capacity increases in non-OECD economies are accelerating a broad restructuring of the global refining industry and oil trading patterns. European refiners will see no let-up from the squeeze caused by increasing US product exports and the new Asian and Middle Eastern refining titans.

“North America has set off a supply shock that is sending ripples throughout the world,” said IEA Executive Director Maria van der Hoeven, who launched the report at the Platts Crude Oil Summit in London. “The good news is that this is helping to ease a market that was relatively tight for several years. The technology that unlocked the bonanza in places like North Dakota can and will be applied elsewhere, potentially leading to a broad reassessment of reserves. But as companies rethink their strategies, and as emerging economies become the leading players in the refining and demand sectors, not everyone will be a winner.”

While geopolitical risks abound, market fundamentals suggest a more comfortable global oil supply/demand balance over the next five years. The MTOMR forecasts North American supply to grow by 3.9 million barrels per day (mb/d) from 2012 to 2018, or nearly two-thirds of total forecast non-OPEC supply growth of 6 mb/d. World liquid production capacity is expected to grow by 8.4 mb/d – significantly faster than demand – which is projected to expand by 6.9 mb/d. Global refining capacity will post even steeper growth, surging by 9.5 mb/d, led by China and the Middle East.

The growth in North American oil production presents opportunities and challenges, notes the MTOMR. With large-scale North American crude imports tapering off and with excess US refining output looking for markets, the domino effects from this new supply will continue. Having helped offset record supply disruptions in 2012, North American supply is expected to continue to compensate for declines and delays elsewhere, but only if necessary infrastructure is put in place. Failing that, bottlenecks could pressure prices lower and slow development.

While OPEC oil will remain a key part of the oil mix, OPEC production capacity growth will be adversely affected by growing insecurity in North and Sub-Saharan Africa. OPEC capacity is expected to gain 1.75 mb/d to 36.75 mb/d, about 750 kb/d less than forecast in the 2012 MTOMR. Iraq, Saudi Arabia and the UAE will lead the growth, but OPEC’s lower-than-expected aggregate additions to global capacity will boost the relative share of North America.

Rising non-OECD participation in the oil market will be associated with continued growth in commercial and strategic storage capacity, along with strategically located storage hubs to support long-haul crude and product trade. African economies will play a larger role in the global market than previously expected. Although data leave room for improvement, there is strong evidence that African oil demand has been routinely underestimated, and may grow by a further 1 mb/d over the next five years.

Finally, steep growth in non-OECD refining capacity will accelerate the transformation of the global product supply chain, exerting downward pressure on refining margins and utilisation rates and leaving OECD refineries at risk of closure, notably in Europe. Product supply chains will continue to lengthen as new merchant refining centres extend their reach, resulting in higher disruption risks and potentially more volatile markets in product-importing economies.

Since joining the faculty of the Department of Geography in 1980, Professor Richard Church has advised 14 PhD dissertation committees and 28 Masters theses. He has also served on 25 doctoral and 22 Masters committees. Professor Church has been engaged in many aspects of graduate education at UCSB, from service on committees of the department, college, and university, to competing for the external funding that is needed to maintain and support an active research group. All of this speaks to a very strong commitment on his part to the very best aspects of a successful academic community. One of his colleagues writes, "It has always amazed me that he can give so much time to his students and still get so many of his own sole-authored papers published and give freely of his time to department and university service."

According to a colleague of Professor Church, "During the working day it is unusual for his office door to be closed, and equally unusual to see him not in close conversation with one of his current students, as they discuss the latest developments in the student’s work. He has been enormously successful at inculcating a sense of rigor and scientific objectivity in his students, in taking care of their personal needs, and in seeing them through the graduate-school process and into careers."

One of his students offers the following praise: "[Professor Church] has played an integral part in my development as a scholar: he has shared his technical expertise and served as a role model. His influence will be felt in my own academic career, as well as those of my future students."

Finally, another student states, "Rick [Professor Church] excels as a mentor by every possible measure. His keen intellect, innovative scientific approaches, and high productivity make him a leader in the field of geographic analysis. Moreover, he inspires and enables graduate students to follow his example…. Rick has been accessible, communicative, personable, and patient. I notice this collegial interaction is the way Rick treats all students."

For his dedication and exemplary mentorship of graduate students, Professor Richard Church is awarded an Outstanding Graduate Mentor Award. Congratulations, Professor Church! (source.)

Acronyms are the bane of any discipline/organization, but they come in handy as abbreviations – even if one can’t always remember what they stand for. In the case of ERI (Earth Research Institute), there aren’t many people who can explain how (never mind why) CSL (Computer Systems Laboratory) evolved into ERI over ~25 years and what the intervening acronyms stood for.

Fortunately, Geography’s web master and Senior Artist, Susan Baumgart (1998 - 2005), spent a lot of time tracking down the history of the Department of Geography and its relationship to other research entities on the UCSB campus: “In 1988, Jeff Dozier and Ray Smith reorganized the earth science component of an organized research unit named Computer Systems Laboratory (started in 1972 under Engineering) into the Computer Systems Laboratory/Center for Remote Sensing and Environmental Optics (CSL/CRSEO), which, in 1995, was renamed Institute for Computational Earth System Science (ICESS); Ray Smith was the first Director (1988-1996); Catherine Gautier became Director in 1996; Dave Siegel was appointed Director in 2002” (source).

ERI was formed in July of 2011 through the merger of the Institute for Crustal Studies (ICS) and the Institute for Computational Earth System Science (ICESS). Doug Burbank  (then Director of  ICS; Chair of Earth Science) and Dave Siegel worked together to merge the two units. Coming up with an acronym for such an entity was a challenge, so the name was voted on by all of the participants, and, fortunately, the temptation to call the merger "CRICESS" was overcome.

Technically, an acronym is only an acronym if you pronounce it as one word (like "laser" or "scuba"); if you spell out the letters, it's an “initialism” (like FBI or HTML). ERI seems to be both (see Wikipedia: Acronym). CRSEO (Center for Remote Sensing and Environmental Optics) may also have been a swinger in this regard, insofar as it was commonly referred to as “Crazy-O.”

Pete Peterson, now a Scientific Programmer in the Department of Geography who, previously, was a developer of GUS (the Grand Unified System - campus-wide data base) and, before then, a researcher who worked at ERI with Catherine Gautier and Dave Siegel, has experienced each stage of the morphing of CSL into ERI: “When I was an undergraduate in 1984, I had a work study job with Ray Smith at CSL (Computer Systems Lab; primarily Ray Smith and Jeff Dozier). Then came CRSEO (Crazy-O), the Center for Remote Sensing and Environmental Optics (adding some more PI's), and then came ICESS (Institute for Computational Earth System Science, pronounced “ISIS”) which, when merged with the Institute for Crustal Studies, became ERI (Earth Research Institute).” He also pronounces ERI as EERIE - and, indeed, it is, whether or not it’s an acronym.

Article by Bill Norrington, with a lot of help from Pete Peterson and Kathy Scheidemen (MSO of ERI).

On the morning of May 14, the editor for the Geography Department counted 46 pillbugs on the ground floor of the south wing of Ellison Hall—and that didn’t include the women’s restroom or the History of Art and Architecture’s Image Resource Center – and the bugs are swept up each night. This has been going on for several weeks. So, what’s a pillbug? And why are they invading?

According to Wikipedia, “Armadillidiidae is a family of woodlice, a terrestrial crustacean group in the order Isopoda. Unlike members of other woodlouse families, members of this family can roll into a ball, an ability they share with the outwardly similar but unrelated pill millipedes and other animals. It is this ability which gives woodlice in this family their common name of pill bugs, roly polies, chiggy-wigs or potato bugs. The best known species in the family is Armadillidium vulgare, the common pill bug. Among adults, they are often seen as unwanted (but essentially harmless) home pests. They are cherished among children, who enjoy keeping them as pets. Keeping a pet pill bug requires a very moist habitat with limited light. They can live for about two to three years.”

“A very moist habitat with limited light?” Granted, Geography personnel try to minimize overhead lighting to save energy, but the south wing of Ellison gets more sun than the north wing, and the north wing doesn’t have a problem.

“Pillbugs breathe by means of gills and specialized air tubes enclosed in protective chambers under the body. Gills must be kept wet in order to extract oxygen from water, restricting these creatures to moist habitats” (source). But Ellison Hall isn’t what you’d call “a moist habitat,” especially in light of the water saving measures that have been implemented inside the building and in the surrounding grounds during the last couple of years.

Pillbugs don’t cause any major damage, apart from being a minor nuisance: “They are not dangerous or harmful to people, pets, stored foods, houseplants, furniture, or home structural timbers. Unless they can find damp areas, none can survive inside the home for more than a few days. And even in high moisture areas, unless they also find food in the form of plant debris, they cannot establish permanent, reproducing populations in the dry, light living quarters of homes” (op. cit.).

Indeed, pillbugs are remarkably clean critters, insofar as they don’t urinate (they pass ammonia gas directly through their exoskeletons), and they eat their own poop (it’s called coprophagy - they need the copper that they lose through excretion). See insects.about.com for more interesting facts about pillbugs.

Phelps and Buchanan halls don’t have an infestation of pillbugs, so what attracts them to Ellison Hall? One initial theory was that they were attracted by the two, small compost bins outside the main double door, but few, if any, pillbugs have been seen around the bins. Another theory was that our tree trunk section illustrating dendrochronology (in the lobby) was to blame, but, again, few, if any pillbugs have been seen near it – besides, the round of pinewood was cut green in 2010, has been stripped of bark, and can hardly quality as “plant debris.”

Perhaps there’s a water-filled sinkhole under Ellison that attracts the critters. Perhaps it's something even more sinister…(wacka-do, wacka-do):

THE EGGPLANT THAT ATE CHICAGO

(Dr. West's Medicine Show & Junk Band; audio here)

You'd better watch out for the eggplant that ate Chicago, / For he may eat your city soon. / You'd better watch out for the eggplant that ate Chicago, / If he's still hungry, the whole country's doomed.

He came from outer space, lookin' for somethin' to eat. / He landed in Chicago. He thought Chicago was a treat. / (It was sweet, it was just like sugar)

You'd better watch out for the eggplant that ate Chicago, / For he may eat your city soon (wacka-do, wacka-do, wacka-do) / You'd better watch out for the eggplant that ate Chicago, / If he's still hungry, the whole country's doomed.

Article by Bill Norrington

Google has released a massive cache of satellite images that show how Earth’s surface has changed over recent decades. The announcement (May 9, 2013), “A picture of Earth through time,” came from Google’s Official Blog:

“Today, we're making it possible for you to go back in time and get a stunning historical perspective on the changes to the Earth’s surface over time. Working with the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), NASA and TIME, we're releasing more than a quarter-century of images of Earth taken from space, compiled for the first time into an interactive time-lapse experience. We believe this is the most comprehensive picture of our changing planet ever made available to the public.

Built from millions of satellite images and trillions of pixels, you can explore this global, zoomable time-lapse map as part of TIME's new Timelapse project. View stunning phenomena such as the sprouting of Dubai’s artificial Palm Islands, the retreat of Alaska’s Columbia Glacier, the deforestation of the Brazilian Amazon, and urban growth in Las Vegas from 1984 to 2012.

The images were collected as part of an ongoing joint mission between the USGS and NASA called Landsat. Their satellites have been observing earth from space since the 1970s—with all of the images sent back to Earth and archived on USGS tape drives. We started working with the USGS in 2009 to make this historic archive of earth imagery available online. Using Google Earth Engine technology, we sifted through 2,068,467 images—a total of 909 terabytes of data—to find the highest-quality pixels (e.g., those without clouds), for every year since 1984 and for every spot on Earth. We then compiled these into enormous planetary images, 1.78 terapixels each, one for each year.

As the final step, we worked with the CREATE Lab at Carnegie Mellon University, recipients of a Google Focused Research Award, to convert these annual Earth images into a seamless, browsable HTML5 animation. Check it out on Google’s Timelapse website. Much like the iconic image of Earth from the Apollo 17 mission—which had a profound effect on many of us—this time-lapse map is not only fascinating to explore, but we also hope it can inform the global community’s thinking about how we live on our planet and the policies that will guide us in the future. A special thanks to all our partners who helped us to make this happen." (Posted by Rebecca Moore, Engineering Manager, Google Earth Engine & Earth Outreach.)

As Time’s Timelapse page points out, “These Timelapse pictures tell the pretty and not-so-pretty story of a finite planet and how its residents are treating it — razing even as we build, destroying even as we preserve. It takes a certain amount of courage to look at the videos, but once you start, it’s impossible to look away.”

Editor's note: Many thanks to Professor Chris Still and to my sister, Linda Norrington, for suggesting this material.

Ocean processes are dynamic and complex events that occur on multiple different spatial and temporal scales. To obtain a synoptic view of such events, ocean scientists focus on the collection of long-term time series data sets. Measurements are continually provided by fixed sensors, e.g., moorings, or gathered from ships. Recently, an increase in the utilization of Autonomous Underwater Vehicles has enabled dynamic data acquisition (source).

An underwater glider is a type of AUV that uses small changes in its buoyancy in conjunction with wings to convert vertical motion to horizontal, and thereby propel itself forward with very low power consumption…gliders using buoyancy-based propulsion represent a significant increase in range and duration compared to vehicles propelled by electric motor-driven propellers, extending ocean sampling missions from hours to weeks or months, and to thousands of kilometers of range…A wide variety of glider designs are in use by Navy and ocean research organizations and typically cost $100,000 (source).

The glider used by the UCSB Earth Research Institute (ERI) is actually owned by The Santa Barbara Coastal Long-Term Ecological Research Project (SBC-LTER) which is housed at the Marine Science Institute at UCSB and is part of the National Science Foundation's Long-Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network. The LTER Program was established by the NSF in 1980 to support research on long-term ecological phenomena, such as the giant kelp forest ecosystems in southern California. As a related project, “Plumes & Blooms” in the Santa Barbara Channel (see http://www.icess.ucsb.edu/PnB/PnB.html for more on the latter) benefits from collaboration with the SBC-LTER. ERI provides the majority of the manpower for programming, deploying, and recovery of the glider which is affectionately referred to as “Olly,” short for the Barbareño Chumash word for sea otter (olqhósh).

According to Stuart Halewood, the Associate Development Engineer for ERI who is in charge of mission planning/monitoring, deployment, recovery, and maintenance of Olly, the glider “is a buoyancy-driven vehicle, which means it sucks in seawater into the nose section which causes it to loose buoyancy at a prescribed rate. At a preplanned maximum dive depth, this water is expelled and Olly climbs. The short carbon fiber wings and the movable battery pack within Olly allow us to set the dive and climb angle and therefore Olly's horizontal speed as it collects data over a sawtooth pattern of dives. Using a set of programmed mission behaviors, we can set Olly to surface at prescribed times and relay data back to us via Iridium satellite transmission or FreeWave radio communications; head to different waypoints, depending on changing conditions; and change which sensors sample and how often, as well as surfacing for recovery at a prescribed safe location.”

“Olly is predominately deployed from the SBC-LTER small boat R/V Kelpfish. Currently, we are doing regular Cross-shelf missions on a 4km transect offshore of Mohawk reef that allow us to repeat the data coverage many times over the approximately 21 day missions. We are also running 'virtual mooring' missions where Olly dives between two points repeatedly and maintains its position, effectively simulating a moored instrument. So far, we have deployed Olly on 15 Missions, 9 of which were Mohawk Cross-shelf missions that equate to more than 300 Cross-shelf Transects.”

“The Teledyne Webb Research (TWR) Glider Deployment Plan for ERI and SBC-LTER involves obtaining seasonally resolved cross-channel and alongshore glider sections in support of the ongoing ERI Plumes and Blooms project. The TWR electric glider is designed to operate from 4 to 200 meters, and it measures conductivity, temperature, and pressure; dissolved oxygen; chlorophyll-fluorescence (Chl-fl); colored dissolved organic matter fluorescence (CDOM-fl), and three channels of spectral backscatter. These data can be used to derive many physical and biogeochemical parameters, such as density, salinity, phytoplankton biomass, production rates, particle size and composition, which will be used for assessing time/space variations of plumes, bloom, and physical links between the deeper ocean and the innershelf. Science goals are to assess the role of synoptic scale (days to weeks) oceanographic and land-ocean interaction processes on environmental conditions in the Santa Barbara Channel.”

Other members of the ERI team who work with Olly are Erik Stassinos, an Assistant Development Engineer with ERI who is involved with mission planning/monitoring, deployment, recovery, and maintenance of Olly; and Fernanda Henderikx Freitas, a Graduate Student Researcher with ERI who is involved with mission planning/monitoring and data analysis of Olly. The SBC-LTER staff involved include many of their boat captains and divers who help with deployments and recovery. Research Biologist Daniel Reed is the primary investigator for SBC-LTER.

Editor’s note: Many thanks to Stuart Halewood for providing the material for this article, and to Derek Manov, Principal Development Engineer, for suggesting the subject matter in the first place.