How to capture satellite imagery in your backyard and contribute towards a snapshot of climate crisis

Many documentaries on the climate crisis feature stunning satellite images of floods, hurricanes, and forest fires. These conditions are affecting people all over the globe. It is difficult to control how their experiences are recorded. Our project open-weatherThe, provides the knowledge and tools to help you change your life.

Our network of 29 volunteers captured a collective picture of Earth on the first day at COP26, the latest UN climate change conference in Glasgow. They tuned into transmissions from three orbiting National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration satellites to capture a collective image. This was done using DIY Ground stations consist of radio antennae connected to laptops.

Each member of each group recorded a satellite photo as well as observations of the weather on 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 PlanetOn October 31, 2021

This photo included a cyclonic system that curled around the UK, dust clouds that swept the Indian subcontinent, as well as the glaciers of Patagonian andes, which were shown by geographers Bethan DaviesGlobal warming is causing the forests to shrink and thin rapidly.

How to take your satellite images

Anyone can learn how to receive images from the NOAA satellite public data broadcast. You only need a basic V shaped antenna, also known as a dongle, along with one of many free software applications, such as CubicSDR. The antenna and dongle together cost around £50 (US$66).

Now you are ready to launch your DIY satellite station. First, you need to use a Free online toolTrack satellite orbits overhead and then locate somewhere outdoors with a clear sky view. 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.

The satellite’s unique radio transmission is captured by your antenna and sent to your laptop. There, the software converts the signal into sound. The sound can be decoded to two images that the satellite received as it passed above you. 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. This means that each image is unique to its creator.

Open-weather was created in April 2020 to allow non-specialists to access this practice. We published a number of publications. How-to guidesAnd Hosted workshops in different countries. We also Created artworksIn collaboration with the design studio Rectanglecommissioned 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 as world leaders gathered in Glasgow for the COP26.

The climate crisis in a snap

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

It was “a day marked by unexpectedly low temperatures” following the arrival of the cold. sudestadaEzcurra, Juhazs and Juhazs wrote field notes about 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 in Mumbai, India submitted three images that covered the vast area from the Persian Gulf to The Himalayas. During the second satellite pass, he noted: “My laptop had a layer of dust on it … heavy pollution was felt.”

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

He also noted that the region had experienced “extremely torrential rain.” Many contributors shared their experiences with exceptional rainfall.

“Weather systems are becoming more difficult and harder to predict,” and so is knowing “what, where, and when to put it,” said Natasha Honey, an Australian farmer from New South Wales.

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 evident in the history of the area.

“The sun dominates,” wrote artist Cédrick Tshimbalanga in Kinshasa, Democratic Republic of Congo. “The rainy season was alive before, and it was abundant. But, during the dry season, it was 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 said, “As a doctor 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.”

Barfrost from Kirkenes in Norway contributed unexpectedly. He had taken a photo of the cartographic North Pole and noted that there were “southern insect” [are surviving]Winter.

These satellite images and field notes show that the Climate crisisIt will feel different depending on where you live. In some areas, dry seasons are expanding. Other places are experiencing clouds of dust, increasingly volatile storms and health effects from the air we breathe.

A growing community of Earth-watchers is able to help politicians respond to the climate crisis. We might all learn to collectively be responsible for and accountable for the changing environments we live in.

This article has been republished from The ConversationUnder a Creative Commons License Read the Original article.