Tag: geography

  • A View Beneath the Ice

    A View Beneath the Ice

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    Brendan Barry
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    I love maps. And above the ocean’s surface, we generally have accurate maps for Earth’s surface with only two notable exceptions. One is Greenland and its melting ice sheet is, in part, contributes to the emerging conflict between the United States and Denmark over the island’s future. The other? Antarctica. Parts of the East Antarctic…

  • Showing All 50

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    Brendan Barry
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    Those who know me know one of my pet peeves are when maps of the United States do not display Alaska and Hawaii. I even noted yesterday that those two states were so late of additions to the United States and it made sense as to why they were not included. So when I was…

  • Mt Greylock Cross Section

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    Brendan Barry
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    I spent the better part of the last two weeks travelling and hanging out in the Berkshires and Connecticut River Valley in western Massachusetts. One of the coolest experiences was driving up the automobile route for Mt Greylock, the tallest point in Massachusetts. Most of the drive itself was just regularly spectacular as the mid-morning…

  • But Where Are the Spiders?

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    Brendan Barry
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    Yesterday I mentioned more about revolutions, well today we’re talking about Mars, a planet that revolves around the Sun. Late last week scientists working with the InSight lander on the Red Planet published their findings. Turns out we need to rethink what we know about Mars. First, the planet is probably much older than Earth.…

  • The Changing Colours of Rivers

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    Brendan Barry
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    No two rivers are the same, though they certainly can be similar. Rivers have their own ecosystems and when I was at school, I learned of the different classifications of rivers by the colour of their water: black, white, and clear. Broadly speaking, that just means the amount of sediment dissolved in the river’s water.…

  • The Earth Is a Bit Bumpy

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    Brendan Barry
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    Last Friday I shared an xkcd post about the relative smoothness of the Earth. This week he posted an illustration but a slightly different scale. You can see more of Earth’s jagged edges. Gotta love the Star Trek reference. I’m betting he used the length of the Kelvin timeline Enterprise, which I personally dislike, as…

  • The Earth Is Actually Quite Smooth

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    Brendan Barry
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    At scale. Not quite as smooth as a billiards ball, as is often claimed. But still, with the majority of the Earth’s surface covered by water, the highest mountains of Everest and K2 make for mere fractions of differences in height relative to the Earth’s size. But that did not stop xkcd from making a…

  • A Map of Unequal Comparisons

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    Brendan Barry
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    I’ve largely been busy creating and posting content on the Covid pandemic and its impact on the Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware tristate area along with, by request, both Virginia, and Illinois, my former home. It leaves me very little time for blogging, and I really do not want this site to become a blog…

  • Different Paths to Density

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    Brendan Barry
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    Yesterday we looked at the expansion of city footprints by sprawl, in modern years largely thanks to the automobile. Today, I want to go back to another article I’ve been saving for a wee bit. This one comes from the Economist, though it dates only back to the beginning of October. This article looks at…

  • Wicked Hot Islands

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    by

    Brendan Barry
    in

    Though the temperatures might not always feel it, at least in Philadelphia, summer is ending and autumn beginning. Consequently I wanted to share this neat little work that explores urban heat islands. Specifically, this post’s author looks at Massachusetts and starts with a screenshot of the Boston area. The author points out that the Boston…