My favorite site for tracking storms is windy.com. It does what its says on the tin with wonderful graphics. It also links to webcams around the world so you can see the impact of the weather as it happens.
Australian bushfires
It is difficult not to be moved by media reports of fires sweeping across Australia’s Kangaroo Island at the moment (and elsewhere). ESA’s Sentinel constellations continue to monitor the progress of this natural disaster. The speed at which they are spreading is frightening. The Sentinel 2 false color composite images (bands 12, 11 & 2) below show (a portion of) Kangaroo Island, population ~5,000 and the location of several wildlife and conservation reserves. The spread of the fire from late December to present illustrates the rapid, destructive power of these bushfires.
Dec. 16: No visible active fires. The Australian Bureau of Meteorology issue a catastrophic fire danger warning for the island on Dec. 18. 
Dec. 21: Central north coast actively burning. 
Dec. 26: The fire largely burnt out but not fully extinguished. 
Dec. 31: Several new fires actively spreading into Flinders Chase National Park. 
Jan. 5: Though largely obscured by cloud cover, the fire has engulfed a huge proportion of the national park. Fires continue to burn uncontrolled today with >155,000 hectares already impacted. 
The true color Sentinel 3 images below (300m gsd) taken on Dec 19 and Jan 5 show the extent of devastation in the last two weeks.
Sentinel images created in EO Browser.
This part of the island has experienced extensive fires before. Over 90,000 hectares burnt following a lightning strike in 2007, the extent of which is shown below in before (2007) and after (2008) Google Earth images. The area is also captured by the GE historical images up to 2017 and worth a look to see the recovery of the park over the following decade.
IEOS 2019 Program
The Program for this years Irish Earth Observation Symposium in NUIG hosted by ICHEC has been finalized.
Looks great- see you all on Thursday.
Map of Geospatial Companies Around the World
on GIS LOUNGE
Christoph Rieke has assembled a growing list of commercial geospatial companies with offices located all around the world. Each listing has been categorized (e.g. GIS / spatial analysis, Earth Observation, Digital Farming/Agtech, Webmaps/Visualization, EO Satellites, UAV/Aerial, Geodata Infrastructure). A Google Sheet also contains information about the focus of the company and a determination of the office locations size (small, medium, or large).
While the list is certainly not complete, it represents a substantial effort by Rieke to track and map out where geospatial companies are operating. Of the 465 locations on the list, almost 30% (137 locations) are located within the United States
JOINT RESEARCH CENTRE EUROPEAN SOIL DATA CENTRE (ESDAC) vacancies
Are you looking for a job relevant to soils? Some new interesting vacancies available
Check out PhD in “The Impact of Management on Grassland and Cropland SOC”
The PhD Fellowship is part of a joint research project between University of Limerick, Teagasc, and Trinity College Dublin. The student will be based at between University of Limerick and Teagasc for periods of the studentship. The student will be registered at the University of Limerick and be supervised by Dr Ken Byrne (University of Limerick), Prof. Gary Lanigan and Dr. Dominika Krol (Teagasc), and Dr. Matt Saunders
(Trinity College Dublin). The Fellowship provides an annual stipend of €24,000. University fees are paid by the student from this stipend, which is tenable for 4 years.
Registration now Open for Irish Earth Observation Symposium – IEOS19
The registration form for IEOS 19, to be held in NUIG on the 5th & 6th Dec is here: registration-for-ieos19.
Or you register online at eventbrite.
The event is free but you must register (deadline for registration is Nov 22nd).
A reminder that the Abstract call is now open here.
MERMS GIS Week 4
Lecturemnotes, Practical Instruction and Assessment guide for Week 4: GIS & Earth Observation_L4_P4
