ChronoClimateHub: Visual Narratives of Earth’s Changes

Applications and Dashboards
Author

Sambadi Majumder, PhD

Published

October 23, 2023

Introduction 🌍🕰️

ChronoClimateHub serves as a compelling portal where time unfolds the narrative of Earth’s remarkable transformations. Through a series of mesmerizing timelapse videos, viewers can witness significant shifts in climate, biodiversity, and ecological landscapes across different global regions.

Data Sources 📊

  • Temperature and SPEI Data:
    • Temperature Data Citation: Vose, R. S., Applequist, S., Squires, M., Durre, I., Menne, M. J., Williams, C. N. Jr., Fenimore, C., Gleason, K., & Arndt, D. (2014). NOAA Monthly U.S. Climate Gridded Dataset (NClimGrid), Version 1. NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information. DOI:10.7289/V5SX6B56 [9/25/2023].
    • SPEI Data: Sourced from the National Drought Mitigation Center.
  • NDVI Data:
    • Citation: Didan, K. (2021). MODIS/Terra Vegetation Indices 16-Day L3 Global 1km SIN Grid V061 [Data set]. NASA EOSDIS Land Processes Distributed Active Archive Center. https://doi.org/10.5067/MODIS/MOD13A2.061
  • Aerosol Data:
    • Data comprises the Absorbing Aerosol Index (AAI) pivotal for detecting absorbing aerosol particles in the atmosphere from COPERNICUS/S5P/NRTI/L3_AER_AI.
  • SO2 Data:
    • Insights into sulfur dioxide emissions, sourced from the TROPOMI instrument on board the Sentinel-5P satellite, reveal both natural and anthropogenic sources from Sentinel-5P NRTI SO2: Near Real-Time Sulfur Dioxide.

Workflow 🔄

Core Functionality

ChronoClimateHub is built using Streamlit which provides a dynamic and interactive platform for showcasing timelapse videos. Here’s a brief overview of the workflow based on the provided code snippets for different segments of the platform:

1. Page Configuration:

  • Title and icon are set for the web page using st.set_page_config.

2. Sidebar & Main Content Area:

  • Sidebar contains a success message guiding users to ‘Timelapse Videos’.
  • A markdown formatted welcome message is displayed on the main content area with basic instructions for navigation.

3. Video Display:

  • The page is divided into two columns using st.columns.
  • Timelapse videos are displayed side by side in these columns, each accompanied by a caption.

4. Data Source Information:

  • A subheader is created using st.subheader to segregate the data source section.
  • Information about the data sources, including direct links to the datasets, are provided in markdown and text formats.

5. Data Processing and Calculation:

  • Another subheader segregates the data processing section.
  • Details about data acquisition, cleaning, processing, and used libraries are provided.

Each section of the workflow corresponds to a specific feature or functionality within the ChronoClimateHub platform. The sidebar, video display, data source information, and data processing details are presented in a structured and user-friendly manner, making the platform intuitive and informative.

Libraries and Tools 🛠️

The workflow utilizes various Python libraries to handle data and display the content. Key libraries include: - streamlit: For creating the web app and displaying content. - pandas: For data manipulation. - folium: For map rendering. - geopandas: For handling geometric data. - shapely: For manipulation and analysis of planar geometric objects. - ee: For accessing Google Earth Engine data. - rasterio: For reading and writing geospatial raster data (e.g., GeoTIFF). - os: For interacting with the operating system.

Additionally, R libraries like progress, transformr, gganimate, raster, ncdf4, and the tidyverse suite of packages are used for data processing, visualization, and animation in the Temperature and SPEI segments of the project.

Streamlit App Deployment 🌐

The Streamlit app is hosted online, providing a user-friendly interface for interacting with the visual narratives of Earth’s changes. The st.set_page_config, st.write, st.markdown, st.video, and st.columns functions, among others, are used extensively to structure the content, display the videos, and create an engaging user experience. The sidebar and main content area are organized to provide a straightforward navigation structure, enabling users to easily explore the timelapse chronicles and understand the underlying data and processing steps.

Through a combination of Streamlit’s interactive features and Python’s powerful data processing libraries, ChronoClimateHub offers a captivating platform to visualize and explore the profound transformations our planet is undergoing.

Code

The code for this project can be found here