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                Time-Lapse Look at Earth Shows Decades of Change

   by Kate Woodsome

   Sometimes we get a better perspective by taking a step back. A new
   project by Google, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS), NASA and TIME
   offers the distance we need to see our planet, and our species, like
   we've never seen them before.
   The project, called [1]Earth Engine, is made up of more than 28 years
   of satellite images taken of Earth and turned into an interactive[2]
   timelapse map that shows expanding cities, shrinking rainforests,
   drying lakes and melting glaciers.
   Dubai 1984-2012
   Dubai, 1984 - 2012. Landsat imagery via Google.
   The U.S. space agency, NASA, tweaked its observation of the universe in
   the 1970s so that it wasn't just looking into outer space, but was also
   peering down at Earth, watching how humans are altering the planet we
   live on. The mission, called [3]Landsat, has collected millions of
   images with eight orbiting satellites, all archived by the USGS.
   Those images weren't doing the public much good until the U.S.
   government decided in 2008 that they should be available for free to
   anyone who wanted to use them.  That's when the Internet giant, Google,
   stepped in.
   In 2009, Google started sifting through 2,068,467 images - 909
   terabytes of data - to find the best-quality pictures taken between
   1984 and 2012. Throwing out pixels shrouded in clouds or forest fire
   smoke or industrial smog, Google brought their pictures to Carnegie
   Mellon University's CREATE Lab to produce an online animation.
   The result is a revelation, sometimes frightening, sometimes
   breathtaking.
   Amazon Rainforest in Brazil, 1984-2012
   Brazil's Amazon rainforest, 1984 - 2012. Landsat imagery via Google
   The deep forest green of Brazil's Amazon rainforest fades into a
   brownish landscape scarred by deforestation. The straight razor edge of
   Dubai's desert coastline sprouts artificial islands, made into the
   shape of palm trees by sand dredged from the ocean floor. And images of
   the Columbia Glacier in the U.S. state of Alaska begin as a blinding
   white blanket in 1984 and end, 28 years later, as shredded patches of
   snow.
   From Hong Kong to the Democratic Republic of Congo, to your home town,
   Earth Engine offers something for everyone, wherever you are. The
   self-guided tour through man's "development" on Earth is both inspiring
   and troubling with its unvarnished look at where we've been and where
   we're going.
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   [4]http://www.voanews.com/content/google-earth-engine-timelapse-shows-c
   hanging-planet/1661012.html

References

   1. http://earthengine.google.org/#intro
   2. http://world.time.com/timelapse/
   3. http://landsat.usgs.gov/
   4. http://www.voanews.com/content/google-earth-engine-timelapse-shows-changing-planet/1661012.html