Google Earth has released an update to its Timelapse feature, giving viewers a better look at the rapid expansion of the world’s urban areas between 1984 and 2016.
Originally released in 2013 in partnership with TIME and NASA, the update adds in four more years of data, as well as petabytes of imagery data from two new satellites, Landsat 8 and Sentinel-2, to provide clearer views of new developments and the recent effects of climate change on our natural environments.
The platform suggests a range of sites that have seen some of the greatest change in the past 32 years, including cities like Las Vegas and Dubai, and natural terrain, such as shrinking Antarctic glaciers and the disappearing Aral Sea – but any location can be searched and viewed.
Aral Sea
Check out the new Timelapse for yourself above, or on the Google Earth Engine website, here. You can also create your own timelapse tour using Google's timelapse editor, here.
News via Google.
