Website shows Earth changes from confinement

Now it is possible to see how the confinements by the coronavirus have altered air pollution, hospital lights and even white asparagus crops.

Using data from 17 satellites, three space agencies created a website that serves as a global dashboard showing the temporal changes that have been observed on Earth from space. The European Space Agency (ESA), the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency and NASA on Thursday unveiled the Earth Observing Dashboard page, whose e-mail address is: eodashboard.org.

The data, which will be expanded in the future, monitors 30 environmental indicators, 17 economic signals and three agricultural indices.

The dashboard reflects some indications of a return to normality in some parts of the world.

For example, when it comes to nitrogen dioxide – an indicator of industrial and vehicular pollution – “we see an immediate reaction to confinement,” with levels falling about 50% in parts of Europe during the month of April, said Josef Aschbacher , director of Earth observations at ESA. Similar declines were recorded at different times in the United States and China.

But now those pollution levels are rising again as cars are once again on the streets and the industry has resumed operations in Europe, Aschbacher said.

Pollution levels are falling in South America and could be falling again due to a resurgence of the virus in China, said NASA scientist Ken Jucks.

Other data, such as the number of planes on the runways, show that the economic reopening is not so fast. The user can zoom in on a map and even see the lights of the University of California Medical Center, at its San Francisco campus, come on during the night between January and April.

“It’s the beauty of this dashboard,” said Aschbacher. “You can see which ones react immediately.”

The Associated Press Department of Health and Science receives support from the Department of Scientific Education at the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. The AP is solely responsible for all content.

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