2006-05-23 Google-Maps-extension
Alex Tingle comes from London and is accustomed at the brithish weather and therefore interested in floodings. He wanted to know how it probably looks if the prognoses of the climate scientist really occur and the polar-caps smelt.
So he sat down and programmed an extension for google-maps to create a flood-simulation – he called his idea “flood” and it is praised by experts and recommendend layperson who are also nosy.
In the internet he looked for the necessary information and put them together, therefore he used the data of the Shuttle Radar Topography Mission (SRTM), which mapped in February 2000 the Earth.
Approximately 50 gigabytes raw-material of the remote-sensing are on the server of the geological institute of the United States, the US Geological Survey.
catastrophe-scale reaches 14 meters, what however is rather improbable
Alex Tingle says that he read “that if the Greenland-glacier should completely melt, the oceans would rises of approximately seven meters”. Such a rising is rather improbable. Scientists insist that during the completely melt-out of the polar-caps the sea-level could rise minimum at four, perhaps at six meters.
Concerning the programming and the utilization of the data, Tingle used graphically services. He told: “The whole hard work was done by the guys from Google”. And he really used for his flood-map Google-maps as skeletal-structure. The link to Tingles homepae is called "Sea level rise", thus can the rising of the sea-level be simulated, otherwise someone has the impression to sea the pages of Google-Earth. The simulation is possible until a rising of 14 meters.
For laypersons it can be visualized like a unseen pattern, an overlay. This overlay build contour-lines in the steps from 1 until 14 meters and fills the considered area on the map, depending on someones choice. MashUps are called such linkings of data from different sources. With a mouse-click the flooded areas appear at the monitor hatched.
Rough estimated value
That flood is not a realistic simulation for the deglaciation of the glacier, but rather a virtual leverage for the water-surface, said Tingle with the sight on the Caspian See. “This would also flooded if the sea-level would rise – although it is far and wide only land, but no glacier and no connection to the sea.”
