Turtle Journals

"If I'd known my thesis might later appear on the web, I would have worked a lot harder."

Merlin Mann

Continue reading "Great twitter quote" »

Posted by Michael Coyne at 07:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0) |

[This post will be updated frequently. If you are interested in the topic please check back and post your comments below.]

Quite a few years ago now, when I was first setting up STAT and Maptool, I recall being unhappy with the publicly available sea surface temperature (SST) data sets at the time. This was probably some time during 2003.

I was able to get access to GOES SST, which was not publicly accessible at the time. This was an excellent data set for the time, with daily 6km resolution SST images. Unfortunately it was not a global data set, only covering parts of the Atlantic and Pacific (mainly areas of US interest). In any case, I included these data in STAT and Maptool because the quality was relatively good.

All of the global SST data sets that I could find at the time either had too many gaps (eg clouds or lack of satellite coverage) or too much smoothing (eg over-interpolating to fill in the gaps), such that the small scale variations in areas such as the Gulf Stream or the Kuroshio Current would be lost.

Continue reading "Optimizing SST for sea turtles" »

Posted by Michael Coyne at 03:49 PM | Permalink | Comments (2) |

This is a really great story featuring Bev the sea turtle.

See her track here:
http://www.seaturtle.org/tracking/?tag_id=80060

And more info here:
http://gstc.blogspot.com/2008/04/bevs-back.html

Zoom in with this super cool track in google maps.

Continue reading "Amazing turtle navigation!" »

Posted by Michael Coyne at 04:54 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) |

A really great little post on the importance of making data freely available (or at least with as few restrictions as possible). And the dangers inherent in treating data as intellectual property.

In particular this bit, quoted from a policy paper prepared by Athena Global:

• A direct association exists between pricing and its effects on public access and commercialisation of government agency information. Current pricing problems are having a deleterious effect on the affordability of spatial data in Canada, France, and the United Kingdom;
  
• A direct association exists between the application of intellectual property rights and the degree of public access and commercialisation of government agency information. The greater the restrictions on access, the less successful dissemination programs will be;
  
• Reducing prices and relaxing intellectual property restrictions on government datasets are significant factors improving opportunities for access and commercialization for stakeholders in the geographic information community.

It's impossible to put a value on all the earth observation data that the US government makes freely available. It is one of the undeniably good things they do and it's a shame that other countries do not do the same. Access to European remote sensing data, in particular, is a shambles (CNES Aviso data the notable exception).

Continue reading "Free the Earth (data)" »

Posted by Michael Coyne at 10:28 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) |

During our recent research expedition to Gabon I decided to name one of the leatherback turtles that we satellite tagged in honor of Buzz Out Loud. Buzz Out Loud is one of a handful of technology podcosts that I listen to on a regular basis (hey, I'm not just a "turtle" geek). I let the hosts of the show, Jason, Molly and Tom, pick the name and JaMoTo was born!

Jason, Molly and Tom were kind enough to adopt JaMoTo, and when they received their adoption packet they wore the hats I included in the packet during the show. As seen in the recorded video streams below. Watch to the end and you will get to see them try on the silly hat.

Click play on each of the streams to watch them in sync, but turn the volume down on all but one (otherwise you will get a wicked echo). Thanks to the folks at watchBOL for posting these online.

JaMoTo has been mentioned in a number of BOL episodes and even has her own Twitter feed.

Continue reading "Buzz Out Loud" »

Posted by Michael Coyne at 08:09 PM | Permalink | Comments (0) |