Earth's Green Places Mapped in High Resolution. Pictures.

Being from Ireland I naturally have a penchant for green, so I liked this and thought I would share

Recently released images from the NASA/SOAA Suomi mpp satellite show our entire planets vegetation.


Each weekly vegetation image is around 13 GB in size, 80,000 x 40,000 pixels. If you were to print the image it would require a piece of paper 93 feet wide by 46.5 feet tall.

The images—taken between April 2012 and 2013—show the darkest green areas as the lushest, while the pale colors signify sparse vegetation cover due to snow, drought, rock, or urban areas, according to the U.S. National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration. Mapping vegetation has some practical uses, including forecasting weather or understanding how to best use agricultural land.

Here is a short video using the same data from SOAA/NASA showing vegetation changes over the space of a year. I love how my little Emerald Isle tends to stay green whatever the season.



The Mississippi River
Taken at the end of March this year


The Nile River
Taken in July 2012


U.S. Midwest state of Nebraska
Taken in July 2012


Iraq. The Tigris and Euphrates Rivers
Taken in November 2012


The Rocky, Cascade, and Coast mountain ranges of the Pacific Northwest
Taken in June2012


Here are a couple of links with more information on the images -
NOAA
National Geographic

That's amazing, thanks for posting.

I really like the picture of the Nile river, it looks like a giant tree!

Looks like most of the planet is covered in vegetation, whats all this worry about humans destroying the place then?

Really cool though!

reply to post by Lady_Tuatha


Nice visualization of how green the planet really is.

I am surprised at Africa though. I had thought it was covered with allot more desert than that.

Thank for posting.

Originally posted by roughycannon
Looks like most of the planet is covered in vegetation, whats all this worry about humans destroying the place then?

Really cool though!

edit on 20-6-2013 by roughycannon because: (no reason given)

The Nasa images don't fully show the full extend of our destruction, look at the BP spill for example. We will destroy this planet one way or another.



On a less depressing note, great pics and I erge you guys to also bring in some nature into your homes. Aquascaping is a great start.

reply to post by Lady_Tuatha


I feel bad for saudi arabians they have no green

your from ireland thats awesome

Africa looks green

Second line

reply to post by TritonTaranis


Yeah South Africa has far lusher land than North Africa, that's probably why foreigners set up colonies there, well that and the diamond and gold mines.

Nice I can see my house in the last picture. Jk.

But it's true, it's really green here unlike a lot of places i've seen.

Thanks for posting this! I have an affinity for green as well as I'm Irish, too (hence my user name lol).

It's intriguing to me that there seems to be a band of no vegetation stretching from northern Africa all the way to the interior of China. The "band of desert" does not continue to North America, though. It's weird because, theoretically, if it were climate linked, the same would appear in North America at the corresponding latitudes.

In any case, interesting product of technological innovation! Thanks OP!

reply to post by litlirishone


Us Irish and our green where abouts in Ireland are you? Im up north :-)

reply to post by Lady_Tuatha

im from northern ireland so there must be a few of us here

reply to post by Lady_Tuatha

There's almost a hint of green near me...
Australia, though... Sheesh! You'd think they could dig a couple of trenches/rivers from northwest to south and southeast...and make more of the land habitable. One good dust storm and 2/3 of the top soil (is there any?) is gone.
(BTW - Would love to go to Ireland. Is the IRA conflict still a matter of concern?)

reply to post by WanDash


Yeah Australia gets far too hot, I would die over there lol. It looks so arid on that map.

nah 'The troubles' isnt as big an issue over here now as they used to be. Just a very small minority of bitter people on both sides that try to keep it going ( a few small breakaway groups ), they are a dwindling bunch tho, the majority of people nowadays just want to get along and move away from the fighting. So yeah it is a lot more peaceful here now, more and more tourists are visiting each year also