How to capture satellite images in your backyard – and contribute to a snapshot of the climate crisis

Documentaries on climate change are often illustrated by stunning satellite images of flooding landscapes, hurricanes, forest fires, and hurricanes. These conditions can be faced by people around the world, and they have little control over how their experiences will be recorded and represented. Our project open-weather, provides the tools and knowledge necessary to make that happen.

On the first day COP26(the most recent UN climate change conference was in Glasgow). Our network of 29 volunteers captured an image of Earth by tuning in to transmissions from three orbiting National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellites. This was achieved using DIY satellite ground station made of radio antennae that were plugged into laptops.

Each member of the group took a satellite image and recorded what they could see and feel about the weather on the ground. The network collected 38 images from 14 countries and six continents. These images were then stitched together to create a map. Snapshot of the PlanetOctober 31, 2021

This image included a cyclonic storm system curving around the UK, dust cloud sweeping the Indian Subcontinent, and the glaciers in the Patagonian Butes, which were also shown by geographers Bethan DaviesGlobal warming is causing the forests to shrink and thin rapidly.

How to take your own satellite photos

Anyone can learn to receive images from NOAA satellites’ public data broadcast. All you need is a basic V shaped antenna, also known as a dogle, and one or more of the many free software programmes like CubicSDR. The antenna and dongle together cost around £50 (US$66).

Now you’re ready to launch your DIY satellite ground station. First, use the following: Online tool available for freeTo track satellite orbits overhead, find somewhere outside with a clear view of sky. Use the software to tune the antenna for a specific frequency. The antenna should be positioned so that the tip is north and the arms are parallel to ground when a NOAA satellite passes overhead.

Your antenna captures the satellite’s unique radio transmission and sends it to your laptop, where the software transforms the signal into a sound. The sound can then be decoded into two images, one of which is visible light reflecting off the Earth’s surface. The first is composed of mostly visible light reflecting off the surface of the Earth, the second is made of infrared radiation – invisible electromagnetic waves emitted by the land, sea and clouds. Signal and noise are the characteristics of how you position your antenna or your body in an image. Each image is unique to the person or place that created it.

Open-weather was created in April 2020 to allow non-specialists to access this practice. We published a series. How-to guides Hosted workshops in different countries. We also Artwork createdIn collaboration with the design studio Rectangle, and commissioned by The Photographers’ Gallery in London. A network of amateur satellite image decoders around the globe has been formed as a result.

Here’s what they captured while world leaders were gathered in Glasgow for COP26.

A snapshot of the climate crisis

For their part in the project, cartographer and marine technician Joaquín Ezcurra and journalist Aimée Juhazs travelled to Parque Nacional Ciervo de los Pantanos in Argentina – a wetland at risk from climate change.

It was “a day of unexpected low temperatures” after the arrival of the cold sudestadaEzcurra and Juhazs made the following observations in field notes: wind. They added that “communities living in the delta of the Paraná River in Argentina are suffering dearly from both low levels of water, and increasing numbers of fires during the winter dry season”.

Ankit Sharma (a student in mechanical engineering from Mumbai, India) submitted three images covering the vast region between the Persian Gulf and the Himalayas. During the second satellite pass, he noted: “My laptop had a layer of dust on it … heavy pollution was felt”.

“The pattern of cloud [reflects] the beauty of the nature”, wrote radio amateur Yoshi Matsuoka in Atsugi Kanagawa, Japan.

He noted, too, that the region had had “extreme torrential rain”. Many contributors shared their experiences with exceptional rainfall.

“Weather systems are getting tougher and tougher to predict”, and so too is knowing “what to plant, where to plant, and when to plant”, wrote Natasha Honey, a farmer in New South Wales, Australia.

In Glasgow, not far from the COP26 conference venue, artist and curator Alison Scott commented: “Climate change is felt … in a lack of public transport resilience; in bike lanes being opened (and closed) … in the corporate hijacking of COP26 and the city’s unpreparedness for its scale; in the erosion of rogue-landlord-ed sandstone tenement buildings in need of retro-fitting. It is felt in the history of the place.”

“The sun dominates”, wrote artist Cédrick Tshimbalanga in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. Before, “the rainy season was alive and rain was abundant, and during the dry season, it was much colder”.

Zack Wettstein, a doctor in Seattle, Washington, received a satellite transmission during a “cold, dry, autumn morning, with no wind in sight … in stark contrast to the weather of the past week, when we were struck with an atmospheric river of rain from a bomb cyclone off the Pacific”.

He added: “As a physician working in the emergency department, I see patients affected by these hazards wrought by climate change … with injuries, illness and exacerbations of their underlying disease”.

We received a surprise contribution from Barfrost in Kirkenes, Norway, who imaged the cartographic North Pole and noted that “southern insects [are surviving] the winter”.

These satellite images and field notes show that the climate crisis is different for everyone depending on where they live. In some areas, dry seasons are expanding. Elsewhere, it’s clouds of dust, increasingly volatile storms, or health effects triggered by the air that we breathe.

A growing community of Earth-watchers is able to help politicians respond to the climate crisis. Together, we might be able to learn to share responsibility for and accountability for the environment we are changing.

Visit the following link for more images, field notes, how-to guides, and how to guides Our website.