Last Month's Atlantic Monthly Magazine had an eye-opening map and article related to what's going on in the Arctic. Instead of focusing solely on melting ice caps and struggling polar bears, the article demonstrated what the geo-political consequences are in the region due to global warming. One of the consequences has been the permanent opening for the legendary Northwest Passage.

and to paraphrase Donald Fagan of the legendary jazz/rock/fusion band Steely Dan, that's bad news. And so it has been this year in California. Over the warm, windy weekend, which I felt up in northern Sonoma County, fires erupted in Southern California affecting tens of thousands of people and destroying about 900 homes so far.

Fortunately, the web has some excellent tools for those who need to track these fires. There are a plethora of static and interactive maps available from the US Forest Service Remote Sensing Application Center, with links to google earth files for those who'd like to see the active fire perimeters in 3D.

I've taken a long break from blogging. Sometimes, my work gets in the way of writing, as has been the case recently. Here's one example of what I've been working on: creating an interactive map for our Land, Water, and Wildlife program...have a sneak peek before EDF officially releases this map. Caveat: map is incomplete!

Land, Water, and Wildlife Interactive Map

As reported this July, a third of all corals in the world face extinction, much of it due to bleaching, a process directly related to higher water temperatures, and global warming.

Of course, I was interested in whether or not this was a local or global phenomenon, and specifically where bleaching has been happening. A simple web seach found exactly what I was looking for. First, I found that NOAA keeps tabs on current bleaching hotspots. Then I found a site called Reefbase, who maintains a global database of reef conditions. I grabbed their data, and produced this user friendly map below. For anyone who appreciates diving, snorkeling, and the beauty of the coral reef, this map is a serious wake up call.

Click on the image below to begin interacting with the map. You can zoom in and out, pan around, and hover over the points to identify them.

Yellow = Low bleaching levels
Orange = Medium
Red = High

Take a look at the two interactive maps below. The first shows the most up to date foreclosure data from across the US by zip code, generously shared with EDF's Climateatlas from hotpads.com. The other map shows the population growth, also by zip code, during the time frame of 2000-2003. Notice anything? Yep. The communities that had the highest population growth rate between 2000-2003 have the highest foreclosure rates in the country right now.

Communities that have greater than or equal to 1% foreclosure rate grew at 4 times the national average

Sprawl in the last 15 years has been well documented. The combination of cheap land and cheap gas allowed builders to create more homes in areas further afield from metropolitan centers. However, as gas prices and adjustable mortgages rates rose, the people who had been lured out to the fringe began to struggle to make their payments. Some folks were apparently spending upwards of 25% of their household incomes just getting to work.

The population growth rate for the US in the period of 2000-2003 was about 0.7%. In zip codes greater than or equal to 1% foreclosure rate (national average is about 0.3%), the growth rate during that '00-'03 period was 4.3 times the national average. As you can see from examining the maps, there is a direct link between where foreclosures are the worst and where sprawl is the norm.

As we progress through turbulent economic times, we should be more conservative in our building and growth policies. The message is clear: sprawl predicated on cheap energy is not sustainable for the environment or American prosperity. Fortunately, EDF Staff has been working on this issue for years. In testimony before the Senate this year, Andy Darrell made the case to reduce our dependence upon foreign oil by investing in our transit infrastructure. Jim Tripp, EDF's General Counsel has long been an advocate for smart growth initiatives, especially in the New York City area. His team and I are working on growth alternatives in the New York Highlands area just upstate from the city. And in one of the areas hit worst by the foreclosure crisis, Kathryn Phillips has been advocating for an innovative regulation that could help clean up the Central Valley's air quality, reduce greenhouse gas emissions, and encourage smart growth alternatives.

96 turbines providing up to 346 megawatts of electricity generation will start providing juice in 2013.

Where are all of these turbines going to go? Approximately 16-20 miles offshore, where the highest wind capacity is, and pretty far out of view. How might this trend affect you? Do you care about seeing turbines offshore, even if they are 16-20 miles away? Are you willing to sacrifice your view for a clean energy future?

The map below shows wind power potential for the mid-atlantic states. The data comes from The National Renewable Energy Lab. As you can see, it looks like much of the mid-atlantic has wind resources well offshore, and Lake Erie has some promise as well.

My friend Pamela Fox, who is a lead mapping programmer over at Google, blogged last week about a new interface for google maps, where you can specify your chosen mode of transportation: for their directions engine.

This is a result of people like you and me asking Google to step up and walk the walk with their sustainability initiatives.

Can you think of any cool ways to use this new service? Feel free to let me know about it!

Much has been made recently regarding ranking sustainable cities in the US and the world. I decided that this would make an interesting layer for the Climateatlas, so I created a database (though still incomplete) that you can perouse via a map.

What's going on where you live?

It has been quite a year so far for the lower 48. Midwestern Floods in June and this month as a result of Hurricane Ike were the largest since 1993: which was supposed to be the "100 year flood". I guess they need to revise that entire concept within the context of climate change.

Meanwhile, California is in the midst of a drought that threatens water supplies for the state and created ideal conditions for the ridiculous number of fires in late spring...extremely early for fires to be blazing in the state.

Across the country in the southeast, a historic drought continued its grip on a 5 state area centered around northwestern South Carolina. Relief came with a fury, as tropical storm Fay and Hurricane Gustav pounded the area relentlessly in a fashion consistent with global warming models.

This and September hasn't even ended yet. More to come...

Long modeled to be the first and worst to feel it, the Arctic is proving the models correct. The sea ice extent this year is the second lowest ever recorded, following last year's performance.

Check out these awesome animations from the Goddard Space and Science Center...