Polar-ized vision of Earth's climate

Climate change is one of those black-and-white topics of conversation which tend to get people all hot and bothered, if you'll pardon the expression. Some of the evidence is quite damning, however, as the images highlighted in this article which appeared in the online magazine ITWire (www.itwire.com) is anything to go by.
Writer David Heath sets the scene...

Sometimes America's spy satellites have to pass over 'friendly territory.' When they do, they can still be put to good use – in this case, monitoring sea ice for evidence of climate change.
In the past few days, the US Government has de-classified and released via the United States Geological Survey website a number of very high resolution images showing exceedingly clear evidence of warming in the Arctic.
Now, I don't know if these images have had their resolution decreased, but I thought that spy satellites were capable of much higher than the stated 1 metre resolution. No matter.
The first example (warning, all these images are at least 20MB) shows the seashore around Barrow. Barrow is on the northern coastline of Alaska and is completely locked in by ice during the northern winter. By July of each year, the ice has melted sufficiently to allow barge access to bring supplies from the south. The first image in this set shows the state of the ice in July 2006, with the sea ice situated around 800m to 1000m off the coast. The second image, just one year later, shows no sea ice at all within the image's 3000m of offshore coverage.
The next example, of the Beaufort Sea, approximately 200km north east of Barrow, shows a substantial loss of summer open-sea ice. Whereas the first image, in August 2001, shows a mass of sea ice with a degree of melting, the second image, in August 2007 shows open sea, with minor, small patches of ice – clearly melting.
These two pairs of images display an alarming change in the proximity and amount of sea ice over a relatively short time.

Read the full article here

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A giant leap for Google

Google has added an interactive 3D terrain and landscape map of the moon to Google Earth as the internet giant celebrates the 40th anniversary of the Moon landings. You can now experience a tiny little bit of what it must have felt like to actually be there.
Users will need to latest version of Google Earth, 5.0 and they will be able to follow the footsteps of astronauts Jack Schmitt, the last of the Apollo astronauts to arrive and set foot on the Moon, and Buzz Aldrin and the flight of the rover during their trip online.
Michael Weiss-Malik, Product manager of Moon in Google Earth, said: "Forty years ago, two human beings walked on the Moon. Starting today, with Moon in Google Earth, it's now possible for anyone to follow in their footsteps."
Read more of the article in IT Pro Portal here and download the latest version of Google Earth here

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What is a henge anyway?

Get on your trikes ladies and gentlemen of Google, you're off to see the best sights and sites Britain has to offer.
According to Webuser online magazine, Google has announced the six British tourist destinations that will be photographed extensively for Google Maps Street View.
It says: The six winners, as chosen by the public through an online poll organised by Google and tourism agency Visit Britain, will each be visited by the Google Trike, an 18-stone tricycle mounted with a camera and powered by a Google tricyclist.
Along with the six winners, which are Stonehenge, the Millennium Stadium, the Angel of the North, Loch Ness, the Eden Project and Warwick Castle, Visit Britain chose Bamburgh Castle in Northumberland as the 'wildcard' entry.
If you fancy an early look, here's what Stonehenge looks like...

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Map your way to a new home

Google Inc. has unveiled a new feature that will let users in Australia and New Zealand search for property listings on its mapping service, a move that could pit the company against established online real estate services.
Google's new tool will enable real-estate agents and publishers to upload their listings into its database, allowing buyers and renters to link directly to property listings displayed on the Google's maps.
The free service is available only down under at the moment, but Australia's The Age reported that Google is poised to roll it out in the U.S. as well.
Google said in a blog post that people were increasingly using the internet to search for a home to buy or rent. Its new service will allow buyers and renters to refine their searches by neighborhood, the number of bedrooms and bathrooms, available parking and price.
Each result would appear as a marker on a map, giving users a sense of the distribution of the properties for sale or rent. That means searchers could quickly find available properties that are close to, for example, a specific school.
Users could then click on a marker to get more detailed information about the property, including the listing agent's Web site and contact details.
Sounds like a good idea, all that needs to happen now is for the housing market to pick up and we can start actually using it...

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