Quick: what’s a vegetation index? 🌱
1. The number of vegetables you plan to eat on Thanksgiving
2. A measure of the health and vigor of plants and crops
Drop your guesses below!
This enhanced vegetation index was made with data from NASA’s Aqua satellite. NASA satellites have a unique view of our favorite fruits and veggies from space, and the data they collect help us understand how climate conditions impact crop health around the globe. We’re thankful for the harvests that bring food to our tables – and also for our Earth-observing satellites that help us monitor those crops from space! Happy #Thanksgiving 🛰
Video Description:
A time-lapse animation over the eastern United States, Central America, and northwestern South America from April through October 2023. The image shows shades of green and tan, with areas of green becoming darker and expanding southward as the growing season progresses. By mid-summer, most of the image is dark green. During the autumn months, northern parts of the U.S. shift from green to brown as leafy growth slows down.
Central America and South America remain green throughout the whole animation, due to their tropical climate. These colors are not what the eye would see, rather the darker green shades indicate a higher level of vegetation vigor and health. These images are a NASA satellite product called the “enhanced vegetation index.”
#Climate #NASA #Aqua #ClimateChange #Earth #vegetationindex #EarthScience #ClimateData #EarthData #crops
Sustainable construction is entering a decisive phase as regulation replaces rhetoric across architecture, engineering and infrastructure. The sector is adopting a measurable framework for environmental sustainability in construction, centring on whole life carbon assessment and verified data on embodied carbon in materials. Leading architecture firms have introduced a sustainability standard for glass, signalling that eco-design for buildings is advancing beyond marketing claims to measurable low carbon design outcomes.
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Innovations in geothermal and renewable energy sources are redefining net zero whole life carbon trajectories, potentially transforming energy-hungry sites into models of carbon neutral construction. Low carbon construction materials and digital performance tracking are now integral to sustainable building practices and the broader decarbonising of the built environment.
The convergence of materials innovation, circular economy frameworks and decarbonised heat is reshaping sustainable architecture as a high-performance discipline. Industry leaders increasingly see sustainability not as compliance but as the essential business model for sustaining life cycle performance, achieving net zero carbon, and guiding the next generation of low-impact construction.
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