Posted on March 5th, 2024

Apollo News Snippets – March 2024

The NOAA Selected Significant Anomalies map for January 2024 shows that while Antarctica had its 5th coldest winter on record, it also had the 5th lowest sea ice extent; while the Arctic had it 15th warmest, it had its 20th lowest sea ice extent. Africa and South America recorded their warmest January’s while Europe had its 19th warmest on record. For the 10th month in a row, global ocean temperatures hit a record high. (Image Credit: NOAA Global Climate Report)
  • The NOAA Global Climate Report for January 2024 has been released and it is further proof that global warming remains a concern. Temperatures were above average across much of the globe, but the eastern United States, most of Europe and a few other areas were surprisingly cooler than average. While the Northern Hemisphere’s snow cover was near average, the Antarctic Sea ice extent was fifth lowest on record for January. Global precipitation was at near record-high levels in January, following on the heels of a record-setting wet December. There is a 22% chance that 2024 will be the warmest year in NOAA’s 175-year record and a 79% chance that El Niño will transition to neutral conditions by mid-year.
  • When March rolls around, thoughts gravitate toward St. Patrick’s Day. If you don’t wear green, you might get pinched while searching for that pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Just in time for this lucky holiday, our Google search of the month was, “GIS and St. Patrick’s Day.” We discovered that lots of communities use GIS to map out their community’s St. Patrick’s Day parade route as well as any foot races and run fests planned for the holiday. There’s also a digital map of some of the best parades, festivals and events happening across Ireland for St. Patrick’s Day. We found an interactive map developed from a study done in 2009 by Drs. Kenneth Field and Linda Beale that looked at the use of GIS to create a, “visual interpretation of the spatial and quantitative distribution of birth data from the 1890 Irish census of population.” The birth data identifies the surname of every child born by county. The surnames on the map have either historic or numeric importance to the counties of Ireland and as such the map provides an illustration of the associated geographies. The resulting “Geo-Genealogy of Irish Surnames” is a densely typeset map with label symbol scaling of Irish surnames proportional to the number of births recorded in the 1980 census. A PDF of the Irish Surnames map (36 MB in size) is also available.

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

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