Here Comes the Flood II

Using data from NASA, here is a Google map tool that allows you to speculate on possible consequences of global warming and rising sea levels.

Below is Maryland and the Chesapeake Bay area under an additional 10 meters of water.






Here Comes the Flood I

Don't Worry, Be Cool

Today I noticed the cover of the 11 July issue of The Spectator magazine. The illustration shows the planet Earth enjoying the sunshine without a care in the world (sort of like my vacation last week) I couldn't find a complete image of the cover online, but here are two bits...

In the cover story, "Meet the man who has exposed the great climate change con trick"

James Delingpole talks to Professor Ian Plimer, the Australian geologist, whose new book shows that ‘anthropogenic global warming’ is a dangerous, ruinously expensive fiction, a ‘first-world luxury’ with no basis in scientific fact. Shame on the publishers who rejected the book

I'm not going to argue about global warming here (take it to some other blog). I'll just post this link and image from The Guardian's rebuttal: "Spectator recycles climate rubbish published by sceptic"

Real Power Grids

More serendipitous cartography.

The other day I was asked a question at the library reference desk:

"What are the power grids in the United States?"

The first thing I thought of was one of my favorite boardgames, Power Grid (see earlier post on the Power Grid game):



Of course, what she wanted to learn was how the national power grid is arranged for distribution of electricity. With only a little bit of searching, I found these maps on the Department of Energy website. Interestingly there is no "national power grid" in the United States. The continental United States is divided into three main power grids:



This one reminds me of the game map above:

Electricity is generated as it is used. There is very little ability to store electricity. Because of this instantaneous nature, the electric power system must constantly be adjusted to ensure that the generation of power matches the consumption of power. On continental U.S. power grids, roughly 150 Control Area Operators serve this function by using computerized control centers to dispatch generators as needed.

Folks that are interested in finding ways to enhance electrical power generation in this country, without additional greenhouse gasses, are looking for alternatives. Coincidentally, an old friend of mine told me that he has completed a Master's Degree in Alternative Energy. He is primarily interested in wind power. We've had interesting discussions on generation and distribution of wind power. One of the problems is that many of the best locations for wind power generation are far from the most populated areas:



The Aleutian Islands of Alaska have the greatest potential, but also possibly insurmountable roadblocks to distribution to the rest of the national grids (let alone the rest of Alaska). Some of the best areas for generation near population centers are along Lake Michigan and Cape Cod in Massachusetts. Unfortunately, many of the people living there, and many in the Tourist Industry, are opposed to development of wind farms in these areas. NIMBY

I just noticed that the latest issue of Wired magazine has a cover story on
7 Ways to Fix the Grid "Demand for electricity is expected to increase by as much as 40 percent in the next two decades—more than twice the population growth rate." The article offers proposals on ways to make distribution of energy in the United States more efficient, and includes this and other mappish graphics:



Finally, since I mentioned greenhouse gasses earlier, I'll throw in this recent post from The Map Scroll titled, "Australia is the Canary in the Global Warming Coal Mine." Interesting reading.

Oregon Inflated

New York, Texas, California and Alabama are not the only states with an inflated view of themselves... in this illustration from The Oregonian, the state of Oregon barely leaves room for the rest of the United States...



The Oregonian: Look out, Oregon, for a global warming land rush

The prediction caused a collective grimace among the mayors, city councilors, engineers and planners in the audience. By 2060, a Metro economist said, the seven-county Portland area could grow to 3.85 million people -- nearly double the number here now.

Thanks Katie

Magazine Roundup

Time for another sampling of maps on magazine covers:

	The Week September 19, 2008 Sarah Palin is having an impact on the election and nation... or is she tearing it apart?
New Scientist September 6, 2008 Talk about your global warming...
	Tikkun July August 2008 What? Do you think new worlds grow on trees?
New Yorker October 6, 2008 Revisiting the classic "View of the World from Ninth Avenue" cover, a "View of Russia from Gov. Palin's Office." For a larger version of this map, see: Strange Maps.

Maps On The Brain

A selection of recent publications with maps on the cover:

A book:

The Political Mind: Why You Can't Understand 21st-Century American Politics with an 18th-Century Brain by George Lakoff

The author attempts to explain why a great number of Americans actually vote against their own interests.



Some magazines:





The cover of this issue of The New Yorker (June 23, 2008) features cover art, “Summer Job”, by Bruce McCall.

If you cannot make out the detail, it fancifully depicts bears checking in and out of the "Employees Entrance" at a National Park, while the tourist are reminded, "No picnicing in Buffalo Wallows."

If you look very closely, you can see that, yes indeed, there is a map! A "You Are Here" map of the park for the tourists.

This cover reminds me of the old Warner Brothers Cartoon where Ralph the wolf and Sam the sheepdog clock in, as buddies, before battling over the sheep.



“Subway Man”, by Roz Chast, graces the June 30 issue of The New Yorker. A stressed out commuter IS the transit map of Manhattan.

Finally, the June 21, 2008, issue of the New Scientist magazine features a very hot looking planet Earth, for a cover story on global warming.


#207

Great Salt Lake

In his book, How to Lie with Maps, Mark Monmonier discusses "cartographic agendas", and how, in the 1960s, the United States Geological Survey finally started removing racial slurs from place names (such as "Nigger Creek"). Almost as an aside, he mentions this little quirk about USGS topographic maps:

While liberals wring their hands over the mapmaker's do-it-by-the-book intransigence over racial slurs, fiscal conservatives might object with equal vigor to the perfectly executed, largely blue maps of wholly inundated quadrangles in the middle of the Great Salt Lake. A case in point is the Rozel Point SW, Utah, 7.5-minute quadrangle, which derives its name from a land feature on the next row up, one sheet to the right. Except for the titles, grid lines, and marginal notations similar to those on maps of Fresno and Kalamazoo, the 1:24,000 Rozel Point SW sheet is a featureless light-blue rectangle adorned only by a note at the center

Utah: Index to topographic and other Map Coverage, USGS, National Mapping Program

At my library, we are a Federal Document Depository and we have a complete collection of United States 1:24,000 scale topographic maps. As you can see by the index example above, the entire nation is divided into a grid. Each grid rectangle is a named map. Intrigued by Monmonier's story, I had to see for myself. I pulled out the Rozel Point SW sheet and here it is (right). A big blue blank. The only information to be found on this map is the name of the body of water, and its elevation (below).
(Sorry for the poor image... I need a better camera.)

Bureacracy beats commons sense every time...

But, I wonder... does the USGS know something we don't know? Perhaps Rozel Point SW is a place holder for a future map... After global warming...

The graphic to the right, from Commonly Asked Questions About Utah's Great Salt Lake (Utah Geological Survey), illustrates how the water level of the Great Salt Lake has fluctuated over the years.

Perhaps the USGS has topographic maps of the "Rozel Point Salt Flats" ready for the day that the Great Salt Lake dries up...

UPDATE 2/6: "jesssse" reminds me that the earthwork sculpture "Spriral Jetty" is located at the actual Rozel Point (grid coordinate D6). Constructed in 1970, it was built of mud, salt crystals, basalt rocks, earth, and water. The Spriral Jetty has been in the news lately; threatened by a wildcat oil operation on the Great Salt Lake.

Maps on Magazine Covers

An assortment of maps on magazine covers from my collection:

If you want to demonstrate your "global reach"... put a globe on your cover...











While I suppose it is not suprising to find a map on the cover of the Journal of Geography... I particularly liked this "melting Earth" image... (see global warming).



If you want to tell your readers "we're covering the news" put a map on the cover:



Map in an editorial cartoon on a cover:



Like the recent Time magazine cover, here is a map on the body to imply how "widespread" a disease can be:

Here Comes the Flood

In honor of the flood in my basement last night, I share this worst-case-scenario map of global warming:


From Bits & Pieces

Not relevant to maps, but still funny, in a dark way, these are the Christmas cards we're sending out this year.
From The Onion: Merry Second-To-Last Christmas