Apollo News Snippets – January 2022

• We always lead off with our favorite snippet of the month, that being technological advances, so here we go!
  A new catalyst converts carbon dioxide into a liquid fuel.
  A fully-recycled battery.
  Alcohol-based fuel cells are one step closer to commercialization.
  Improved process for converting carbon dioxide into liquid fuels.
  Rapidly charging batteries has negative consequences.
  Batteries from abundantly available sodium and sulfur closer to a reality.
  And here is another advance in sodium-based batteries.
  Perpetual motion robots could innovate pharmaceutical delivery in the human body.
  New catalyst shows promise for the commercialization of hydrogen gas.
  Diamonds might be hydrogen gas’ best friend too.

The NOAA extreme weather events map for November 2021 shows that Africa had its warmest November on record while Australia had it’s wettest November on record. The Artic Sea ice extent was at its 9th smallest for November with the Antarctic ice extent at its 2nd smallest.

• Yep, you guessed right if you guessed November was hot–in fact we have been hot for 443 consecutive months as the most recent NOAA global climate report shows. How hot was it? Well, it was the 4th hottest November at some 1.64°F (0.91°C) above the 20th Century average. Another record was set for November as 10.4% of the globe’s surface recorded record warmth in the month.

• Did you know that January 20th is National Penguin Day? In honor of our well-dressed animal friends, our Google search of the month was, “Penguin and GIS.” And of course, we found an article on the topic by Fretwell et al.! This one even uses satellite imagery (which is of course our jam!) to count and thereby estimate global emperor penguin populations.

• Last month we checked out the online GIS resources of Florida’s third largest city, Tampa; and for this month we travel to a neighboring state with a review of Columbus, Georgia’s online GIS resources:
  Columbus, GA GIS Website
  Columbus, GA GIS Contacts
  Columbus, GA GIS Web Map 
  Columbus, GA GIS Map Collections
  Columbus, GA GIS Direct Downloads (we do not see a way to download GIS files from the city website so we suggest emailing them about this)

Brock Adam McCarty
Map Wizard
(720) 470-7988
brock@apollomapping.com