Google and the University of Michigan are co-hosting a conference focused on exploring science data visualization in Google Earth, Google Maps, and KML, on October 22nd and 23rd in Ann Arbor, Michigan. The two-day event will bring together academics, researchers and students from all over the country to discuss the scientific uses of virtual globes and how that technology is enabling newer and richer data interaction experiences for both expert and novice users. Keynote speakers include Tim Killeen, Assistant Director for Geosciences at the National Science Foundation, and Dan Adkins, former Director of the National Science Foundation Office of Cyberinfrastructure. Google engineers will be on hand to work directly with students and scientists on ways to overcome technical problems and to provide training for those interested in advanced techniques with KML.

http://googleearthconference.engin.umich.edu/overview.php

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September 9-12, 2009   Beijing, China

*** Abstract Deadline: 30 Nov., 2008 ***

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http://www.isde6.org  
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First Announcement & Call for Papers

Dear Colleagues,

We are cordially inviting you to attend the 6^th International Symposium on Digital Earth (ISDE6) with the theme of Digital Earth in Action in Beijing, China in September 2009. The International Symposium on Digital Earth has been successfully held in China (1999), Canada (2001), Czech Republic (2003), Japan (2005) and the United States (2007). The ISDE6 will mark the 10th anniversary of the birth of such an International symposium dedicated to Digital Earth.

ISDE6 aims to provide an international forum for world-class scientists, engineers and educators engaged in the fields of digital earth, earth observation, geo-informatics and relevant applications to review the progress of Digital Earth during the last decade and discuss the achievements of Digital Earth and the recent developments. Attached please find the detailed information about ISDE6.

This Symposium will be sponsored by the International Society for Digital Earth (ISDE) and Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), and organized by the Center for Earth Observation and Digital Earth, CAS and the Chinese National Committee for ISDE.

For more information, please visit the symposium website http://www.isde6.org or email the secretariat at [email protected] . We will be very grateful if you can circulate this call for paper to your colleagues.

We are looking forward to your attendance!

ISDE6 Secretariat                                                               

Email: [email protected]                                                      

Tel.: 86-10-58887298/ 58887297   Fax: 86-10-58887302                           

URL : www.isde6.org                                                         

Address: 14 Floor, Kedian Building, No.9 Beiyitiao, Haidian District, Zhongguancun, Beijing  100190, China

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You may be wondering where to publish your fabulous work on geobrowsers.  This Wiki page collects a list of relevant journals.

• International Journal of Digital Earth
• Journal of Environmental Informatics
• Earth Science Informatics (ESIN)
  
• CODATA Data Science Journal
• Geosphere (Geological Society of America) : open access
• Computers and Geosciences (impact factor 0.802, 2006)
  
• Environmental Modelling and Software (impact factor 1.992, 2006)
  

 (please add your own here!)

There might also be some entries in the Geobrowsers community blog: they should be tagged with the keyword "journals":  click here

Here are some upcoming relevant conferences:

(TODO) 

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Here's a really nice application of Google Earth for visualizing ash plumes and directing aircraft around them, from Pete Webley, University of Alaska Volcano Observatory:

http://www.popsci.com/environment/article/2008-06/google-earth-environment-guide

(Picture from Google Earth/University of Alaska)

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Here are some links to various KML feeds displaying Argo data (thanks to Mathieu Belbeoch of JCOMMOPS):

Active/Inactive Floats & Trajectories
http://argo.jcommops.org/FTPRoot/Argo/Status/status.kmz    
http://argo.jcommops.org/FTPRoot/Argo/Status/inactive.kmz

NEW (active/inactive floats, all deployments, deployment plans, network density/age/planned density - without trajectories - under construction)
http://argo.jcommops.org/FTPRoot/Argo/Status/ARGO_FULL.kmz 

Other Argo layers:
http://www.coriolis.eu.org/cdc/google_earth.htm
http://www.nodc.noaa.gov/argo/argoGE.htm

It's interesting to combine these feeds with this dataset of daily sea-ice concentration:
http://nsidc.org/data/google_earth/noaa/NSIDC_NISE.kml

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Here's a Google site that collects some interesting KML layers highlighting the environment, climate change, science and technology.

http://earth.google.co.uk/outreach/env_science.html

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I imagine that this is about the millionth blog post on this subject, but it would be a shame to miss this!  There is now a Google Earth plug-in that allows you to embed GE into a web browser (various browsers, but currently Windows XP/Vista only).  It is controllable via a Javascript API, rather like Google Maps.

Use without payment is subject to the normal terms and conditions, i.e. your website must be freely available to the public, otherwise you have to pay for an enterprise licence.

http://code.google.com/apis/earth/ 

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EarthBrowser is a new virtual globe for the Adobe AIR desktop platform and works on Windows and MacOSX.  Based on a quick scan of the website it seems that KML is supported and there is an integrated web browser.  Being based on AIR, I wonder if EarthBrowser could also run in a web browser as a Flash application?

EarthBrowser is shareware - until you register (currently for $29.95) some features will be disabled.

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From http://news.zdnet.co.uk/software/0,1000000121,39420717,00.htm:

"A collaboration between the UK government and Google has produced a new online tool for learning about climate change.

Named "Climate Change in Our World", the tool uses information from the Met Office's Hadley Centre and the British Antarctic Survey to provide two new layers, or animations, to all users of Google Earth.

...

One animation uses world-leading climate-science capabilities from the Hadley Centre to show global temperatures throughout the next 100 years under medium projections of greenhouse-gas emissions, along with reports of how people in the UK and in some of the world's poorest countries are already being affected by changing weather patterns.

... 

Another animation, developed by the British Antarctic Survey, shows the retreat of Antarctic ice caps since the 1950s, and features facts about the science and impact of climate change in the Antarctic."

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Here's a useful-looking piece of software for creating Google Maps more easily.  In fact there's lots of interesting geospatial stuff at the CASA website. 

http://www.casa.ucl.ac.uk/software/googlemapcreator.asp

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