Adam's Blogroll: click through to the author's blog
It’s been raining a lot here in California, which is helpful, because most of the state has been in severe drought for the past few years. However, the current aging systems can only capture so much of the rainwater, which means we’re still in a drought. For Reuters, Clare Trainor and Minami Funakoshi use a combo heatmap and area plot to show drought severity over the years.
Tags: California, drought, Reuters
Posted by in California, drought, Reuters, Statistical Visualization
There’s been a lot of rain in California, which has been good to relieve some of the pressures from drought, at least in the short-term. For The New York Times, Elena Shao, Mira Rojanasakul, and Nadja Popovich show the sudden bump in water supply.
The areas to show historical averages in the background was a good choice. Very reservoir-ish.
Tags: California, drought, New York Times, rain
Posted by in California, drought, New York Times, rain, Statistical Visualization
Highlighting research by Xingying Huang and Daniel L. Swain, who studied “plausible worst case scenario” extreme storm sequences, The New York Times provides a glimpse of what that might look like in California. There are maps, there are charts, and there is an augmented reality view to put rain in your living room.
Tags: California, climate, New York Times, rain, storm
Posted by in California, Climate, Infographics, New York Times, rain, STORM
To show water levels in California’s drying reservoirs, The Washington Post used upside down triangles to represent each reservoir.
I like the idea to use an encoding that kind of looks like a reservoir, but my brain can’t help but read the fill level through height instead of area. Maybe the tradeoff isn’t worth it in this case? Compare this against a circle representation from 2015.
Tags: California, drought, Washington Post, water
Posted by in California, drought, maps, Washington Post, water
It’s been smoky this season. Based on research from Michael Goss et al., Al Shaw and Elizabeth Weil for ProPublica look at the current fire situation in California and what that might mean for the future and the rest of the country.
In wildfires, as with flooding and heat, climate change doesn’t create novel problems; it exacerbates existing problems and compounds risks. So there is no precise way to measure how much of all this increased wildfire activity is due to climate change. An educated guess is about half, experts say. Its role, however, is growing fast. Within 20 years, climate change promises to be the dominant factor driving larger and more frequent megafires — not only in California, but across the country.
Tags: California, climate change, ProPublica, wildfire
Posted by in California, climate change, maps, ProPublica, wildfire
Smoke from the wildfires made its way to the other side of the country and over the ocean. Using data from NOAA, Reuters animated the smoke clouds over time:
With climate change expected to exacerbate fires in the future, by worsening droughts and warming surface ocean temperatures, wildfire research is becoming especially important. Over the last year, the world has seen record fires in Australia, Brazil, Argentina, Siberia and now the U.S. West.
“I’m concerned that we are starting to see these phenomena more often … everywhere in the world,” Gassó said. “If it’s one year like this, it’s fine, as long as it doesn’t keep repeating itself like this.”
Uh oh.
Tags: California, Reuters, smoke, wildfire
The wind was blowing smoke and ash from wildfires further up north from where I live. The sky turned an eerie orange. I wondered about past fires and made the chart below. Read More
Posted by in California, Data Underload, wildfire
Los Angeles Times provides a California-specific map of the current wildfires to stay updated on what’s happening right now.
In the zoomed out view, hexagons bin the individual fires and color by number of hotspots. Wavy hatching indicates levels of air pollution. In the zoomed in view, see the individual fires and click for current status.
Tags: California, Los Angeles Times, wildfire
Posted by in California, Los Angeles Times, maps, wildfire
First discovered in the 1930s, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) now pervade almost every aspect of modern life. In fact, PFAS compounds are found in everything from dental floss to cookware. But human exposure to PFAS comes at a cost, and as old compounds are removed from production, new compounds take their place. So how does a public health laboratory handle this challenge with limited resources? As our feature article shows, by establishing new public-private partnerships.
Here are just a few of this issue’s highlights:
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The post New Lab Matters: The ABCs of PFAS appeared first on APHL Lab Blog.
Posted by in All Posts, APHL, arsenic, California, cyanide, data, epidemiologist, Florida, General, lab matters, Laboratory, laboratory information system, laboratory testing, Michigan, new hampshire, Preparedness, public health, Public health laboratory, ricin, San Francisco, training, water, well water, zambia
The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that 12,000 new laboratory professionals are needed each year to meet consumer demand. At the same time, while automation has eliminated some less-skilled laboratory jobs, the growing sophistication of public health laboratory analyses has generated demand for scientists with highly specialized training. As our feature article shows, laboratories are recruiting new talent for the “hidden profession” by taking a hard look into what they really want, and how they want to work.
Here are just a few of this issue’s highlights:
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The post New Lab Matters: Time to welcome the next generation of public health laboratory scientists appeared first on APHL Lab Blog.