Data Science Day @ Columbia University

Two Columbia University apps for the mobile smart phone and tablet (Earth Observer App and Polar Explorer: Sea Level App) offer interactive exploration of large earth and environmental datasets (terabytes) with the objective of providing an enhanced public understanding of regional and global climate change. The land and ocean surfaces and the atmosphere are updated monthly from satellite remote sensing.  The increase in the temperature of the ocean interior that drives thermal expansion and the rise of sea level and the flow of ice sheets on Antarctic and Greenland towards the coasts are visualized in yearly steps back to the 1960's. A finger tap anywhere in the imagery presents descriptive text. Earth Observer is designed as a topic driven atlas, whereas the user of Polar Explorer: Sea Level is guided to seek answers to questions. Currently the apps have about 100,000 users.