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March 24, 2008
Global Temperature Trends for Google Earth
A couple of programmers from Columbia University developed a Google Earth visualization of a large database of global temperature data. They took data from NASA and other sources and mapped placemarks for cities all over the world. Download their global data file here 
(it may take a few seconds to load the thousands of datapoints). The placemarks have colors which shows the warming trend between the baseline years and recent years. White represents pins without sufficient data in the baseline or recent years. The amount of cooling is shown in shades of blue and amount of warming in reds. But, the real interesting data is inside the placemark descriptions where graphs are shown indicating the temperature trends for each location over the past century or more.
The collection was put together by Ken Mankoff and Mark Chandler of Columbia University. There are more intricacies to the display of the data which are explained on their web page here. This project is a part of a bigger project they have been working on called Educational Global Climate Modeling. This site has a lot of interesting information about our global climate.
Posted by FrankTaylor at March 24, 2008 8:52 AM
Comments
Posted by: carlo at March 24, 2008 2:33 PM
Keep in mind though that Hansen's choice of data and the manipulation thereof has been discredited by other researchers and statisticians. See www.climateaudit.org
Posted by: Ross Nixon at March 24, 2008 3:03 PM
ok,
i'm not a great scientist. but the data modeling has been discredited not the relevation of data and their analysis.
i found the climateprediction modeling quiet interesting. do you know about?
thank's for the link
Posted by: carlo at March 25, 2008 8:20 PM
Lets just be clear that criticisms by individuals at climateaudit.com is simply NOT tantamount to "discrediting" Dr. Jim Hansen's work. Dr. Hansen is a world renowned climate scientist with hundreds of peer reviewed studies to back up his data "manipulation" (I prefer "analysis") techniques.
Posted by: Jim Brad at April 4, 2008 9:54 AM
Dr. Hansen's work is cutting edge and the most comprehensive look at global temperature change. Trying to say his work was discredited by others, especially by the one referenced, is ridiculous! climateaudit.org is being pushed by Rush Limbaugh!!!!! Now let's talk about who should be discredited!
Posted by: T at June 11, 2008 3:21 PM
There is probably not a time in Earth history when the climate was not incrementally changing. As a species, we have been very successful because we can adapt to natural (or even human-induced) climate changes.
What we see now is political warming rather than global warming; an eco-movement designed to satisfy NGOs and others who sometimes preach panic and foam at the mouth.
It would be good to remember that Florida has just recently emerged from the ocean and may in 25,000 years get a few floods.
M
Posted by: Michael at October 3, 2008 1:49 PM
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hi,
i've got the domain googletemperature.com
i registered it just some weeks ago! i would be interested in providing that domain for promoting this project.
please consider the translation in the language of the different users and the fact that covering the great ammount of meterological data (the temperature is just a simpliy relevable one) would bring google in the core development of climate modeling!
one very imortant data is the particulate matter (pm10; pm2,5).
contact me via email!