mastodon 4.7.3Professor of Geography and Director of the Spatial Institute at Western Washington University. Biogeographer, dendrochronologist, climatologist, cartographer, GIS analyst, author of the Salish Sea Atlas.
What does summer feel like where you live? Hot or cool? Rainy or dry? For the #30daymapchallenge Day 25 prompt "Hexagons", I mapped summer climates across North America. I averaged the 1991-2020 climate normals for mean summer temperature and total summer precipitation within 50,000 square kilometer hexagons using data from ClimateNA.
#30daymapchallenge Day 27 "Boundaries": imagining a North America with countries, states, and counties replaced by nested watersheds at multiple scales. I used data from the CEC's North American Environmental Atlas to map the major watersheds of North America using a color palette, text style, and overall aesthetic inspired by 1950s era political maps.
The prompt for the second day of the 2024 #30daymapchallenge is lines, which made me think of routes and shipping lanes. This map shows marine vessel traffic counts in the Salish Sea recorded in 2023, using US Coast Guard AIS data from the Marine Cadastre website.
#30daymapchallenge Day 22 "Data Challenge: Natural Earth". Natural Earth is such a valuable source for spatial data layers! I made this pseudo "North America at Night" type map using the urban areas and roads (subsetted to major and secondary highways) data from Natural Earth. I like the strong sense of interwoven connectivity I get when looking at this visualization.
Happy start of the 2024 #30daymapchallenge! The first prompt is "points", so here is a map with points showing the 837 coastal points, capes, etc. with "Point" in their name along the shores of the Salish Sea. Whatever critique you might have, at least you can't call this map pointless 😁
For #30daymapchallenge Day 6's theme of "Raster", I would like to share this map of the prevalence of Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) in the Salish Sea area.
This map uses a combination of two MODIS-based tree species classifications (Beaudoin et al. 2014 and Barry et al. 2013) based on imagery from 2000-2009.
This map will be included in the forthcoming Vegetation chapter of the Salish Sea Atlas: arcg.is/0WaK51.
#30daymapchallenge Day 14's prompt is "A world map". I wanted to focus on the 70% of the world made up of oceans and I wanted to try some new fun cartography tricks, so here is a map of global ocean currents shown using the ocean-centric Spilhaus projection. Once again, thanks to John Nelson for making this so much faster to create with his Spilhaus template and bathymetry vector tiles. Ocean currents are from maps.com.
For #30daymapchallenge Day 3's theme of "Polygons", I made this map showing the how dramatically median age varies across the Salish Sea Bioregion.
This map shows the median age in 2010 US Census tracts and 2011 Canadian Census subdivisions.
You can explore human population characteristics in the Salish Sea Bioregion in more detail through the Human Populations chapter of the Salish Sea Atlas: arcg.is/0WaK51.
The prompt for Day 15 of the #30daymapchallenge is "My Data: Map something personal. Map data from your own life." I wondered, what is the farthest away from my home in Bellingham, WA that I have traveled? Here is a map of towns I have visited that are the farthest from Bellingham. The lines show great circle routes and I chose four destinations to represent following a great circle route departing to the NW, SW, NE, and SE from Bellingham.
I had fun exploring historical cartographic styles for the #30daymapchallenge Day 7 theme of 'Vintage". Here is a visualization of elevation and bathymetry in the Salish Sea Bioregion. I used topobathymetric data from the Salish Sea Atlas (arcg.is/0WaK51). I looked at some of my favorite local 18th and 19th century maps for cartographic inspiration and historical toponyms.
The prompt for Day 16 of the #30daymapchallenge is "Choropleth." Over nine million people live in the Salish Sea Bioregion, but population density varies dramatically over space. Here are the US Census Tracts and Canadian Census Sub-Divisions that had an average 2010/2011 population density of two or fewer people per square kilometer.
You can explore more detail through the Human Populations chapter of the Salish Sea Atlas: arcg.is/0WaK51.
For #30daymapchallenge #Day22's theme of "North is not always up", I tried an idea I have been thinking about for a while: the path of the Fraser River from the Fraser River's perspective. In other words, oriented to match the direction of its flow instead of oriented with north at the top of the math.
This map shows the Fraser River along with the watersheds of the Salish Sea using data from the Freshwater chapter of the Salish Sea Atlas (https://arcg.is/1jaWX80).
For #30daymapchallenge #Day24's theme of "Black and White", I made this map of the "Salish Sea Bioregion At Night" using NASA's Black Marble data.
The prompt for Day 9 of #30daymapchallenge is to use #AI to make your map. I asked ChatGPT to make a map of the #SalishSea with real placenames. What it created was entirely inaccurate, but eerily adjacent to reality. Sort of the geographic equivalent of the uncanny valley effect. This map is also evocative of a future with flooded coastlines or an alternate past in which plate tectonics played out slightly differently. I find myself surprisingly haunted by this dreamlike visualization.
For #30daymapchallenge #Day27's theme of "Dot", I made this map of the number of people living in each US Census tract and Canadian Census subdivision in the Salish Sea Bioregion. This map shows 2010 data for the US and 2011 data for Canada.
You can explore human population characteristics in the Salish Sea Bioregion in more detail through the Human Populations chapter of the Salish Sea Atlas: arcg.is/0WaK51.
For the last day of the #30daymapchallenge, the theme is "Favorite" and I would like to take this opportunity to share a preview of a map from my forthcoming Salish Sea Climate Change Assessment. This map shows the 1901-2012 linear trends in total annual precipitation at climate stations with long, continuous records in the Salish Sea Bioregion.
#geography #cartography #gis #SalishSea #WWUGeography #ClimateChange
For #30daymapchallenge Day 29's theme of "Population", I made this map showing the surprisingly small area home to over half of the humans living in the Salish Sea Bioregion.
This map shows the highest population density 2010 US Census tracts and 2011 Canadian Census subdivisions.
You can explore human population characteristics in the Salish Sea Bioregion in more detail through the Human Populations chapter of the Salish Sea Atlas: arcg.is/0WaK51.
The prompt for Day 12 of the #30daymapchallenge is "Time and Space". This is a map from my forthcoming Salish Sea Climate Change Assessment showing the 1901-2022 linear trends in average annual temperature at climate stations with long, continuous records in the Salish Sea Bioregion. All climate stations show a warming trend, with temperature increasing by 0.12 to 2.48° C (0.21 to 4.47° F).