The Daily Parker

Politics, Weather, Photography, and the Dog

Google Earth Engine

Google now has a tool that will show you a time-lapse of any part of the world from 1984 to present:

In 2013, we released Google Earth Timelapse, our most comprehensive picture of the Earth's changing surface. This interactive experience enabled people to explore these changes like never before—to watch the sprouting of Dubai’s artificial Palm Islands, the retreat of Alaska’s Columbia Glacier, and the impressive urban expansion of Las Vegas, Nevada. Today, we're making our largest update to Timelapse yet, with four additional years of imagery, petabytes of new data, and a sharper view of the Earth from 1984 to 2016. We’ve even teamed up again with our friends at TIME to give you an updated take on compelling locations.

The examples on the demo page are striking. I would also suggest a few more to check out: Las Vegas (the city quadrupled in size in 22 years); North Suburban Illinois (watch the Glenview Naval Air Station disappear like a leaf in winter); Dubai; Mount St. Helens (watch the forest grow back and logging operations resume). Very cool stuff.

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