9_18 Climate Change Broadcast (CO2 Mapping, Open Data and More)

Hello, and welcome to GeoSpatial Stream. I’m your host, Todd Danielson, and today’s Lead Sponsor is Trimble Geospatial Division.

Today’s Top Story is Greenhouse Gases. An international research team, led by Arizona State University scientists and published in the Journal of Geophysical Research, developed a new approach to estimate carbon-dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels — one that provides crucial information to policymakers.

The system uses information from satellite feeds in addition to national fuel accounts and a new global database on power plants to create high-resolution planetary maps. These maps provide a scientific, independent assessment of the planet’s greenhouse gas emissions.

Here’s a video clip that sums it up nicely:

That was today’s Top Story. I’ll be back with more news after this brief message.

According to an article in The Guardian, government-released open data are fueling a new level of innovation in sustainability. It states that today’s climate-data partnerships are creating unique ventures that cross boundaries among business, government and academia. John Yaist, an Esri technology evangelist, notes that climate change has become a “worn out” topic to some people, but apps are a way to “personalize” the abstract concepts of climate change and disaster response.

Russian reconnaissance satellite Kosmos-2495 reentered the atmosphere and crashed last week, according to a spokesperson for the U.S. Strategic Command. The Russian Defense Ministry previously denied media reports of a Russian military satellite that allegedly exploded above the United States. The Kosmos-2495 was launched on May 6, 2014.

The U.S. Library of Congress is working on search-engine software that can locate and manage geospatial information in and outside the library system and work with a variety of geographic mapping and analysis tools. The library needs to locate, inventory, audit, index, search and generate reports and usage statistics as well as exchange geographic information on local and remote file-storage systems or servers.

In industry headlines, Cadcorp released Cadcorp SIS 8.0, which includes a free-to-use desktop GIS product – Map Express, multiple performance improvements, and new and enhanced core functionality.

Bentley Systems introduced WaterCAD, WaterGEMS and HAMMER V8i (SELECTseries 5) information-modeling software for the analysis and design of water-distribution systems. New real-time-based simulation capabilities improve visibility, forecasting, and decision-making support for modelers and operators.

The Naval Meteorology and Oceanography Command signed a Cooperative Research and Development Agreement with Esri, allowing detailed geospatial data to be analyzed with all its time and geographic references.

And Innovyze released its V13 generation of H2ONET for AutoCAD 2015, which integrates real-time network modeling and GIS data exchange, and adds sophisticated mapping capabilities for infrastructure management and business planning.

And now for today’s Final Thought:

I recently returned from the URISA GIS-Pro conference in New Orleans. I have to say that it was an excellent event, and a really fun time. The speakers and sessions were great, but it’s the people that make URISA special. The word “community” gets used a lot, but that’s exactly what they have. A group of people truly looking out for one another and improving everyone’s ability to do whatever they do professionally. Did I mention that it was also a lot of fun?

I normally include a brief recap of events I attend in these episodes, but I’m creating a special, standalone video compilation for this event, which you’ll want to see when published.

That’s it for this broadcast, but if you’d like to receive alerts when new GeoSpatial Stream videos are released, or sign up for additional V1 Media newsletters, please visit this Web site and register: geospatialstream.com/subscribe

I’m Todd Danielson, and this … was your GeoSpatial Stream.