At the same time fascinating and tragic – Google Earth offers 40 years of rapid evolution of the world

Discover the fastest growing world in the world, thanks to satellite imagery over the past 40 years. We dreamed of it, and Google did it. On Thursday, April 15, a week before Earth Day, the Earth Surveillance Service, an important development of the Earth, was launched online. This is “the biggest update for Google Earth since 2017,” said Silicon Valley, the flagship company.

Timelapse feature Has been around since 2013 offering general routine upgrades. But Google is now offering a 3D view “to provide a new perspective on the changes affecting our planet”. Using timelaps to monitor climate change is actually the best way to understand the catastrophic impact on the human environment, year after year …

However, the tool has not yet been able to handle the whole world. It focuses on a few dozen locations compiled by the theme (agriculture, deforestation, glaciers, infrastructure, megalopolis, mines, rivers, urban development, natural disasters, land transformations). However, it is still possible to zoom in to see more or less the changes in the observed region. Similarly, 2D vision is available elsewhere so that evolution can be followed over time.

Technically, the accomplished challenge is the Titanic : Mountain View had to process nearly 24 million satellite images taken between 1984 and 2020, but to animate them, exaggerating the photos of each region taken in multiple regions.
Spectacular and tragic at the same time.