Surging Seas: Find Out What Sea Level Rise Will Mean For You!

Climate Central has created a web application that displays hypothetical effects of sea level rise around the country. Appropriately dubbed Surging Seas, this interactive map allows you to zoom to individual states and pan the map or search by area code. Once you find your area of interest, you can see the amount of land inundated by different values of sea level rise on the map and view statistics of population, homes, and land area by county or city (similar to my post last month about Dukes County, MA). Water level is adjusted simply by a slider on the left of the page, and as an area gets inundated, a white mask dissipates, revealing aerial imagery of the "flooded" area. Along with this dynamic map, Climate Central also produced a report on the threat that sea level rise presents to the United States.
Surging Seas is very cool and easy to use - I definitely recommend checking out how some of your favorite coastal places may be altered by the sea in the future! Try it below!

ESRI Map of Carbon Dioxide Emissions

ESRI has produced a map that displays carbon dioxide emissions from 1960 to 2008. The map is dynamic in that it allows the user to pick the year, or consecutive years, to display in addition to having the ability to "play" the map as an animated timeline. Another cool feature of the map is that it has two sets of symbology; the map displays countries' total emissions as a color and relative emissions are represented by dots. For more information, including how the map was made, visit ESRI's Map Story Profile.

Mapping Climate Change Vulnerability

As this month's conference United Nations Climate Change conference in Durban nears, here is a map, which I first read about on this blog, of climate vulnerability as concluded in a study by Maplecroft:

As shown in the image above, the top ten most vulnerable countries are:

1. Haiti
2. Bangladesh
3. Zimbabwe
4. Sierra Leone
5. Madagascar
6. Cambodia
7. Mozambique
8. Democratic Republic of the Congo
9. Malawi
10. Philippines 

The study combines socioeconomic factors, including such items as poverty and rate of population growth, with physical factors, such as the likelihood of natural hazards occurring.

Interactive Map Displays Extreme Weather Events

This map, from the Pew Center on Global Climate Change, shows extreme weather events since 1995.

For information regarding recent extremes weather events check out this map from the Pew Climate on Global Climate Change, which displays events that occurred between 1995 and the present. The map features recent events that happened this past summer such as flooding in the Northeast  and droughts in Texas in addition to older events like Chicago's heatwave in 1995.

ArcGIS Tutorial: Creating a Simple Hurricane and Population Map

Last week, I posted a quick map I generated of Irene's path and the population density of the Northeast. I have posted a tutorial on where to find applicable data and how to create something similar in a post on Outside the Neatline.

Irene Heading For Densely Populated Northeast

As of Thursday morning, Hurricane Irene was heading towards the Northeast's population centers.

Communities in the Northeast are preparing for the impact of Hurricane Irene. Mayor Bloomberg is urging citizens to prepare themselves in New York City, and reports are that the city of Boston is investigating potential shelter locations. If Irene comes to shore in the Northeast, there will be large numbers of people affected, which is why some are weary of a potential disaster in the making. Today, I created the population density map above with ArcGIS to show this. On the map, you will find the projected path and cone in addition to population; each dot on the map represents 5,000 people. I have posted a tutorial on where to find the applicable data and how to generate a similar product in ArcMap on Outside the Neatline.

Map of Selected Climate Anomalies (July 2011)

More from NOAA about last month; this map displays selected climate anomalies and events that occurred around the world (July 2011). Some events to note are the heatwave in the US, above average temperatures in Australia, and drought in Eastern Africa.