Signs From Earth

Was Rothstein FSA picture of cow skull a fake? Errol Morris plumbs history deeply in Zoom (via @nytimes)

 
The bleached skull of a steer on the dry sun-baked earth of the South Dakota Badlands. By Arthur Rothstein, FSA.

http://morris.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/10/18/the-case-of-the-inappropriate-alarm-clock-part-1/

A deep dive discussion on the origins and political heat resulting from a picture by Arthur Rothstein of the Farm Security Administration. One tiny excerpt:

"...What makes these accusations of photo-fakery utterly perverse is the claim that they unfairly portrayed a drought. The photographs led the viewer to infer that the Dakotas were experiencing a drought. But the Dakotas were experiencing a drought. One of the worst droughts in American history. Was the real issue that the cow had died of old age rather than drought? Or that the cow skull had been moved less than 10 feet, as Rothstein later claimed? Or had been moved at all? Or that multiple photographs had been taken? Or was it merely an attempt to shift the nature of the debate from the agricultural problems facing the country to an argument about photography and propaganda?..."

Library of Congress URL of image above: http://memory.loc.gov/pnp/fsa/8b27000/8b27700/8b27761v.jpg

Bibliography info: http://rs6.loc.gov/cgi-bin/query/D?fsaall:1:./temp/~ammem_HECK::

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Like PBS Frontline: Leveling Appalachia: Legacy of Mountaintop Removal Mining (via @yaleE360 and @mediastorm)

Samples Mine, Mountaintop Removal Mine, West Virginia. Panorama Photo: Dennis Dimick /flickr 

http://www.e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2198

Video Report at Yale Environment 360 Produced by Chad Stevens at MediaStorm:

"During the last two decades, mountaintop removal mining in Appalachia has destroyed or severely damaged more than a million acres of forest and buried nearly 2,000 miles of streams. Leveling Appalachia: The Legacy of Mountaintop Removal Mining, a video report produced by Yale Environment 360 in collaboration withMediaStorm, focuses on the environmental and social impacts of this practice and examines the long-term effects on the region's forests and waterways..."

Journey to Aldo Leopold Shack, Baraboo, WI

Society of Environmental Journalists sunset journey to "The Shack," the farm close to the Wisconsin River near Baraboo, Wisconsin where conservationist Aldo Leopold was inspired to write his book "A Sand County Almanac." Saturday October 10, 2009. --Dennis Dimick

The Aldo Leopold shack at dusk.

Interior and kerosene lamps preserved as during the time Leopold lived there until his death in 1948.

Sandhill cranes at dusk over Aldo Leopold shack.

Wisconsin River Near Aldo Leopold shack, early evening.

Aldo Leopold Shack early evening.

The Aldo Leopold Shack, Baraboo, Wisconsin. Leopold's book "A Sand County Almanac" took form here.

Tallgrass prairie south of road from the Shack to Leopold Center. It was along this route that Leopold last traveled when he went to fight a fire on an adjacent farm. It was on this neighboring farm that Leopold died of a heart attack, and is where the Leopold Center now stands.

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Telling Stories Visually @MPW61 #MPW61 PDF of Dimick Lecture Now Online

Telling Stories Visually: 

Lecture at 61st Missouri Photo Workshop 2009, Festus/Crystal City Missouri, by Dennis Dimick, PDF: Download MPW_ 2009b_dimick

Website for Missouri Photo Workshop 

Pictures Before and During: Red Sky Over Sydney

Residents of Sydney, Australia awoke today Sept. 23 to orange skies filled with dust. This image pair from jujuly25 at flickr also shows a clear-sky view from the same angle on a Sydney balcony a day ago. What a dusty difference a day makes.

The BBC reported that the dust storm is the result of years of drought in eastern parts of Australia. National Geographic published an in-depth story and pictures in April on the region's Murray-Darling basin and the long term drying from climate change in parts of Australia. These changes are increasingly seen as part of a larger pattern of shifts in rainfall in several regions.

At Earth Observatory, NASA has also posted a satellite image of the big dust storm, link here. 

Human Footprint: Aral Sea Keeps Shrinking

 Central Asia's Aral Sea has been drained of its lifeblood water to slake our thirst. Photo: NASA

Formerly the world's fourth largest lake, the Aral Sea in central Asia has become a dustbowl of its former self after more than 40 years of irrigation that has sucked water from the rivers that feed it. These upstream diversions irrigate cotton and other farms in Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and Turkmenistan in central Asia, arid countries surrounding the Aral Sea that use more water per person than any other nations on earth. 

The August 2009 image above from NASA Earth Observatory highlights the Aral Sea's former shorelines and the few areas on its western and northern shores where water remains. A 10-year sequence of the lake's deteriorating condition also has been posted.

Shoreline of desiccated Aral Sea in Uzbekistan, Sept. 5, 2009. Photo: kvitlauk/flickr

Whole Earth 2009: First Picture From New Satellite

Released July 28 from NASA, this image of earth is the first picture from a new satellite launched in June 2009. Once testing is complete, the geostationary GOES-14 satellite will be used to track weather and solar activity. 

Caption from NASA website page: "From approximately 35,786 km (22,236 miles) in space, NOAA's newest Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite – GOES-14 – took its first full-disk visible image of the earth on July 27, 2009 at 2:00 p.m. EDT. GOES-14, launched on June 27, 2009, from Cape Canaveral, Fla., joins three other NOAA operational GOES spacecraft that help the agency's forecasters track life-threatening weather and solar activity that can impact the satellite-based electronics and communications industry. After five more months of tests, GOES-14 will be placed in orbital storage mode, ready for activation if any of NOAA's operational GOES spacecraft experiences trouble."

NASA PR

Anak Krakatau Erupting at Night (Updated)

From Astronomy Picture of the Day and Stromboli Online, this picture of erupting Anak Krakatau by Marco Fulle comes from a series taken June 4-8, 2009. Original caption: "The passing storm has cleared the air: Big Dipper points towards Anak Krakatau in eruption, exactly north of Palau Rakata. The pole star is almost exactly behind the volcano, but just under the horizon." 

Update: The picture below from NASA Earth Observatory was acquired July 7, 2009 and shows this same eruption from NASA's Earth Observing-1 satellite.

Tikehau Atoll, French Polynesia

This dazzling image of the Tikehau Atoll in French Polynesia was posted as Picture of the Day by NASA Earth Observatory on July 14. The picture was taken by the Earth Observing One satellite (EO1.)

Secret Pictures of Arctic Ice Released

 

A large cache of secret U.S. government images showing arctic sea ice during the past decade has been released to the public after a request by the the National Research Council. The U.S. Geological Survey made these images available July 15 through the Global Fiducials Library. The library includes high-resolution satellite images of Barrow Alaska, Beaufort Sea, Canadian Arctic, Canadian Fram Strait, Chukchi Sea, and East Siberian Sea.

The imaging project began in the mid 1990s when environmental scientists teamed with the intelligence community to determine if satellites and airplanes typically used used for military intelligence could be used to gather environmental data. According to a report in Science News, the images could not be made public until a committee determined the images could be of scientific value.

Besides individual images, the library also includes several large side-by-side comparison posters showing ice loss trends at Barrow, the Beaufort Sea, Bering Glacier, and the South Cascade Glacier in Washington State. The image below shows ice conditions at Barrow, Alaska in July 2006 and 2007.

Millennium Island, Kiribati

Millennium Island was photographed on July 1, 2009 by astronauts in the International Space Station. Formerly named Caroline, this uninhabited island in the South Pacific at the end of the Line Island chain is part of the Republic of Kiribati.

After Kiribati moved the International Dateline in 1995, Caroline became the first land outpost where the sun would rise on the new millennium on January 1, 2000. The island was renamed to mark the occasion, and celebrants arrived to party and celebrate the arrival of the new year, century, and millennium. 

Whether the current Millennium began on January 1, 2000, or January 1, 2001 is another matter.

NASA Earth Observatory: Image of the Day, Millennium Island, Kiribati

NASA Top 10 Image: Ocean Sand, Bahamas

While poking around the NASA Earth Observatory website I came across a page for the the Top 10 Images of the Day. The Top 10 Images page is part of NASA Earth Observatory's 10th Anniversary celebration. The website began on April 29, 1999.

Ranked third among those "Top 10" images is Atafu Atoll, which has been among the most visited postings here at Signs From Earth. Perhaps more pictures and less writing are what the visitors seek...

Ranked second is this amazing 2002 satellite image (above) of sands in the Bahamas. From the description: "...Tides and ocean currents in the Bahamas sculpted the sand and seaweed beds into these multicolored, fluted patterns in much the same way that winds sculpted the vast sand dunes in the Sahara Desert.."

Look Here: Look at LOOK3

Those who know me know I've been deep into photography and photojournalism for about 40 years. Had fun this weekend at the third outing of "The Festival of the Photograph," LOOK3, in Charlottesville, VA. 

Here from a selection of pictures I've put up over on my page at flickr, is festival Master of Ceremonies Vince Musi and his son on Saturday during the master's lecture for Callie Shell (Musi's wife), who has been photographing Barack Obama for Time Magazine for years. For eight years before that Callie was official photographer for  Al Gore when he served as Vice President.

Hot and Cold Winter in Color

Where was winter cool and warm? NASA Earth Observatory posted this image May 9 showing land surface temperature "anomalies" (variance from normal) across the globe during the winter of 2008-2009. Winter in this case is seen as December through February. Except if you live in the southern hemisphere.

Notable warm spots are shown in red: Greenland, Antarctica, and south central South America. Argentina suffered through a significant summer drought and heatwave (below). The western United States was warmer than normal. Shown in blue: northern and eastern North America and northern Australia were cooler than normal. 

Message From Planet Earth

NASA Earth Observatory has just posted (May 8) a new fly-by picture of Earth taken more than three years ago by the MESSENGER satellite, which has been looping around the solar system in a multi-fly-by journey past Mercury, the planet closest to the Sun. As part of that tour it comes near Earth.

Here above you can see the Yucatan Peninsula and the east coast of the United States near the center of the picture. Makes for a great desktop image! 

More pictures from the MESSENGER can be found here. 

The journal Science published an article in its May 1 edition on the most recent Mercury fly-by of MESSENGER last October.