A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z

A Ascension Afghanistan Albania Algeria American Samoa Antarctica Angola Anguilla Antigua & Barbuda Argentina Armenia Aruba Australia Austria Azerbaijan	B Bahamas, The Bahrain Bangladesh Barbados Belarus Belgium Belize Benin Bermuda Bhutan Bolivia Bosnia and Herzegovina Botswana Brazil Brunei Bulgaria Burkina Faso Burundi
C Cabinda Cambodia Cameroon Canada Canary Islands Cape Verde Central African Republic Chad Chile China Colombia Comoros Congo Congo (Democratic Republic) Costa Rica Cote d'Ivoire Croatia Cuba Czech Republic	D Denmark Djibouti Dominica Dominican Republic
E Ecuador Egypt El Salvador Equatorial Guinea Eritrea Estonia Ethiopia	F Finland France French Guiana FYRO Macedonia
G Gabon Gambia Georgia Germany Ghana Gibraltar Great Britain Greece Greenland Grenada Guatemala Guinea Guinea-Bissau Guyana	H Haiti Honduras Hungary
I Iceland India Indonesia Iran Iraq Ireland Israel Italy	J Jamaica Japan Jordan
K Kazakstan Kenya Kuwait Kyrgyzstan	L Laos Latvia Lebanon Lesotho Liberia Libya Lithuania Luxembourg
M Madagascar Madeira Islands Malawi Malaysia Maldives Mali Malta Mauritania Mauritius Mexico Moldova Monaco Mongolia Montserrat Morocco Mozambique Myanmar

X

Z

Zambia
Zanzibar
Zimbabwe New countries not linked to the map East Timor Soloman Islands
Blank
Nauru
Palau
San Marino

“Heal the World” Desktop Background

by Pace on February 25, 2012

Our favorite illustration from the Connection Manifesto is “Heal the World”. Marty was kind enough to colorize it and release it as a free desktop background for you! Click through to the large version, then right-click and select “Set as Desktop Background” in Firefox or “Set as Background” in Internet Explorer. (If you’d like to use it in another context, it’s free for you to use under the cc-by license, which means you can do pretty much whatever you want as long as you credit us and/or the artist.)

The father of the peak oil movement, US geologist M King Hubbert, said an economic model based of infinite growth but fueled by finite natural resources is doomed. Ironically, there’s also a saying from oil-rich Saudi Arabia that goes: “My father rode a camel. I drive a car. My son flies a jet airplane. His son will ride a camel.”

There is a need to accelerate the development of alternative energy fuel resources in order to ensure energy security and reduce emissions, says a paper just published in the journal Energy Policy.

The age of cheap oil has now ended as demand starts to outstrip supply as we head towards the middle of the decade, says the report. It goes on to suggest that the current oil reserve estimates should be downgraded from between 1150-1350 billion barrels to between 850-900 billion barrels, based on recent research. But how can potential oil shortages be mitigated?

Dr Oliver Inderwildi, Head of the Low Carbon Mobility centre at the Smith School, said: ‘The common belief that alternative fuels such as biofuels could mitigate oil supply shortages and eventually replace fossil fuels is pie in the sky. There is not sufficient land to cater for both food and fuel demand. Instead of relying on those silver bullet solutions, we have to make better use of the remaining resources by improving energy efficiency. Alternatives such as a hydrogen economy and electric transportation are not mature and will only play a major role in the medium to long term.’

Nick Owen, from the Smith School of Enterprise and the Environment, added: ‘Significant oil supply challenges will be compounded in the near future by rising demand and strengthening environmental policy. Mitigating the oil crunch without using lower grade resources such as tar sands is the key to maintaining energy stability and a low carbon future.’

The Smith School paper also highlights that in the past, political and financial objectives have led to misreporting of oil reserves, which has led to contradictory estimates of oil reserve data available in the public domain.

Sir David King, Director of the Smith School, commented: ‘We have to face up to a future of oil uncertainty much like the global economic uncertainty we have faced during the past two years. This challenge will have a longer term effect on our economies unless swift action is taken by governments and business. We all recognise that oil is a finite resource. We need to look at other low carbon alternatives and make the necessary funding available for research, development and deployment today if we are to mitigate the tipping point.’

The report also raises the worrying issue that additional demand for oil could be met by non-conventional methods, such as the extraction of oil from Canada’s tar sands. However, these methods have a far higher carbon output than conventional drilling, and have been described as having a double impact on emissions owing to the emissions produced during extraction as well as during usage.

ETOPO1 Global Relief Model

ETOPO1 is a 1 arc-minute global relief model of Earth's surface that integrates land topography and ocean bathymetry. It was built from numerous global and regional data sets, and is available in "Ice Surface" (top of Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets) and "Bedrock" (base of the ice sheets) versions. Historic ETOPO2v2 and ETOPO5 global relief grids are deprecated but still available.

Color Image of Earth

A new color shaded-relief image of Earth from ETOPO1 Ice Surface, created by NGDC, is displayed above. The image is downloadable as a georeferenced TIFF or KMZ file, and available for NOAA's Science On a Sphere^®. The image was created with Generic Mapping Tools (GMT) using three color palettes: blues for ocean depths and above sea-level lakes; greens and browns for dry land areas; and shades of white for the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets, and other glaciers greater than 100 km² using the GLIMS Glacier Database at the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). Image authors are J. Varner and E. Lim, CIRES, University of Colorado at Boulder.

Available Versions of the Grid

ETOPO1 Ice Surface: Grid of Earth's surface depicting the top of the Antarctic and Greenland ice sheets.
ETOPO1 Bedrock: Grid of Earth's surface depicting the bedrock underneath the ice sheets.

Relief for the rest of the world is the same in both versions.

Available Registrations [more about grid registration]

Grid/node-registered: cells are centered on lines of latitude and longitude (21601 by 10801 cells).
Cell/pixel-registered: cell edges are along lines of latitude and longitude (21600 by 10800 cells).

The grid-registered is the authoritative registration. The cell-registered is derived from the grid-registered, and the conversion produces slightly flattened relief. More about grid registration.

Horizontal Datum

The horizontal datum of ETOPO1 is WGS 84 geographic.

Vertical Datum

The vertical datum of ETOPO1 is sea level. More specific vertical datums, such as mean sea level, mean high water, and mean low water, differ by less than the vertical accuracy of ETOPO1 (~10 meters at best), and are therefore effectively equivalent.

Download Whole-World Grids

ETOPO1 Ice Surface: [View Ice Surface Metadata]
- grid-registered: netCDF, GRD98, binary*, xyz, georeferenced tiff
- cell-registered: netCDF, GRD98, binary*, xyz, georeferenced tiff
ETOPO1 Bedrock: [View Bedrock Metadata]
- grid-registered: netCDF, GRD98, binary*, xyz, georeferenced tiff
- cell-registered: netCDF, GRD98, binary*, xyz, georeferenced tiff
  
  * ArcGIS users - use binary and convert using 'Float to Raster'

Custom Grids

Online: Custom regional grids can be created online from ETOPO1 using NGDC's Grid Translator;
Desktop/Offline: For both cell-centered and grid-centered downloaded grids, custom grids with user-defined bounds can be created in multiple formats, using the desktop version of Grid Translator, part of the free GEODAS Windows Software for Online Downloads and GEODAS XWindows Software.