Computer Models for Social Change

Masters student Jian Zhou presented his work on integrating Ferret with the Google Earth API at the Annual GEOIDE meeting.

Design and Implementation of a Script to Integrate Ferret with KML

Jian Zhou and Renee Sieber

Climate change is considered an urgent concern for society yet a very complex and difficult process to understand scientifically. Computer-driven climate models are simplifications of the real world and the primary tools used today in climate change research. Many excellent visualization and data analysis tools have been developed for the study and evaluation of large climate model outputs that are mainly in NetCDF format.

Recent years have seen scientists publicize climate data on earth browsers (e.g., Google Earth, NASA World Wind) for the users to visualize and analysis in three dimensional spaces. The data is being transferred into the earth browsers via KML. KML, an international standard maintained by the Open Geospatial Consortium (OGC year). Because climate data is georegistered to a common base, KML files allow users to overlay and expose this data in new ways.

Our presentations at the Association of American Geographers: Participatory Governance: Moving from PPGIS to the Participatory Geoweb

Pamela H Tudge and Jon Corbett. Cultivating Change: Communities Mapping the Local Food System with the Geoweb in the North Okanagan of British Columbia

Patrick Allen and Jon Corbett. Historical Forest Fire Mapping in the Okanagan

Insoo Steven Chung and Claus Rinner. The Potential of an Online Map-Based Discussion Forum to Engage Residents in Local Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation

Gail Chmura and Sieber will collaborate on a new grant awarded from The Canadian Foundation for Climate and Atmospheric Sciences (CFCAS) to build Web 2.0 features into the Data Access Integration (DAI). DAI provides data for download related to regional climate change and adaptation to climate change. DAI also provides IT support and access of the Canadian Regional Climate Model.

Congratulations to Britta Ricker, who's just been awarded her Masters of Science from McGill University.

BARBADIANS ON THE GEOWEB: VISUALIZING ENVIRONMENTAL CHANGE WITH VOLUNTEERED GEOGRAPHIC INFORMATION

Sieber gave a talk in he Geography Department at Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, BC.

Mashing up Participation: Public Engagement On the Geospatial Web

Everyone’s gone gaga over Google Earth and the rest of the Geospatial Web, or Geoweb. The Geoweb, like its compatriots in Web 2.0, supposedly erases the last vestige of the digital divide, providing ubiquitous data, facile user interfaces, and flexible apps. Indeed, this is the era of ‘You’, according to Time Magazine, in that non-experts become prime generators of content on the Internet. Consequently, ‘you’ set the agenda for further development on the Geoweb and increase your influence in public policy.