Climate Change Lectures at AB Tech

Asheville - Buncombe Technical Community College is hosting a climate change lecture this Thursday, May 1st in Sycamore 201.

Speakers:

Jay Lawrimore
National Climatic Data Center

Jennifer Rennicks
Southern Alliance for Clean Energy

All are welcome.

WNC GIS meeting - Wednesday April 30th

Greetings to all the Good GIS People out there.....

We hope that y'all are enjoying this phenomenal Spring weather, and that you find the time to stop lounging around in the sun to join us for the upcoming WNCGIS Gathering! As posted in the previous email, it is coming up on April 30th, Wednesday, at Asheville Brewing on Coxe Ave.

Feel free to come around 5PM if you can, or drop by later on. We've had an especially sizable and entertaining crowd of folks the last few times, so let's keep up that tradition! Snacks will be provided as usual by the ever-generous Resource Data Inc., and Asheville Brewing serves more fine brews, pizza, and sides then you'll have time to try.

Wishing you the best and hoping you can join the fun,

--Leo Klausmann
WNCGIS Group List Admin

---- thanks for sending out the email to everyone Leo - I copied it verbatim to this post for anyone that stumbles onto the blog that is not on the email list.

KML officially adopted by the OGC

While it's been in the works for a couple of years, it looks like yesterday the official announcement was made. The Open Geospatial Consoritum works to set open standards for all types of geographic information because KML is a mark up language much like HTML and allows the sharing of geographic information in a standard way. Not only on the web but by any software that can now easily include this open standard.

This quote was taken directly from the OGC press release about this and I think it sums it up well.

"Geographic data adds tremendous value to the online experience. More and more people are looking for ways to incorporate location information into their online content," said Michael Weiss-Malik, KML product manager for Google. "The standardization of KML makes it possible for both novice and expert users alike to publish and share geographical information in an open format. It's not unlike web browsers' standardized support for HTML, which allows any web browser to read any web page."

Scientist release high-resolution map of carbon footprint

I stumbled across this while 'working' this morning. It is part of the Vulcan Project funded by NASA and the DOE. This project is attempting to quantify the use of fossil fuels and carbon emissions. If you look at the link you'll see it is hosted at Purdue.

The resolution of the map seems to be 100 square kilometers. The link is from wired.com and has a good article on the project. Possible the most interesting part is the Shell Energy add at the bottom of the page.

http://blog.wired.com/wiredscience/2008/04/scientists-unve.html