Wednesday, September 08, 2021

The Average Seasonal Colors of the USA

Earlier this summer Erin Davis published a series of interesting maps showing the average colors of countries around the world based on Sentinel satellite imagery. The Average Colors of the World includes maps of each continent and a map of the world on which each country is colored based on its average satellite color.

In my June post on Erin's Average Colors of the World maps I noted that the colors in the satellite imagery of the Earth would change throughout the year, reflecting how the landscape changes during the seasons. The same thought obviously occurred to Erin has he is now back with another post showing the Average Seasonal Color of the USA

The screenshot above shows the average colors across the USA on the first day of 2020 (as derived from Sentinel 2 satellite imagery). If you visit Erin's post the Average Seasonal Color of the USA you can view 35 other maps showing how the average colors of the USA change over the course of the year. The post also includes a fantastic animated map which shows these colors automatically changing on the map as the seasons change. 

Erin isn't the only person to map the average colors of 2020. In January The Average Earth Map 2020 was released. This interactive satellite map is constructed from imagery captured by NASA satellites over the course of 2020. Each pixel on the map shows the average color of that location over the whole of 2020.

In order to create the map cartocalypse used 365 daily satellite composite images of the Earth. All 365 satellite images (one for every day) were then merged together and the average color of each pixel was determined. The result is a satellite view of the Earth which shows cloud patterns, permafrost and prevailing wind patterns. 

You can read more about how cartocalypse's Average Earth Map was created, including how the satellite images were downloaded, processed and analyzed on his Satellite Composite of Earth 2020 blog post. This isn't the first time that cartocalypse has created an average Earth map. You might also enjoy his interactive Average Earth from Space 2018 map. 

No comments: