Now you can see how coronavirus blockages have changed air pollution, hospital lights, and even white asparagus crops.
Using data from 17 satellites, three space agencies have created a website that serves as a global dashboard for observed temporal changes from orbit. The European Space Agency, the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and NASA unveiled the Earth Observation Panel at eodashboard.org.
The data, to be expanded in the future, monitors 30 environmental indicators, 17 economic signals and three agricultural indices.
The dashboard reflects some signs of a return to normality in some parts of the world.
For example, with nitrogen dioxide, an indicator of pollution from cars and industry, “we see an immediate backlash from the blockade” with levels dropping around 50 percent in parts of Europe in April, Josef Aschbacher said, ESA’s director of Earth observations. Similar declines were observed at different times in the United States and China.
But now those pollution levels are increasing again because cars have got back on the road and the industry has started in Europe, Aschbacher said.
Pollution levels are dropping in South America and could be dropping again with a virus rebound in China, NASA scientist Ken Jucks said.
Other data, such as airplanes on the runway, do not show such a rapid return. You can zoom in on a map and even see the night lights of the University of California San Francisco Medical Center shine from January to April.
“This is the beauty of the board,” said Aschbacher. “You can see which ones react immediately.”
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