STATE
OF THE
PLANET 
Sources
of near-real-time information on the
state
of the planetary environment
ATMOSPHERIC
AEROSOLS
The satellite Earth Probe TOMS provides daily
imagery of smoke and dust in the atmosphere around the planet at http://toms.gsfc.nasa.gov/aerosols/today_aero.html,
including current aerosol hot spots.
FIRES
The Global Fire Monitoring Centre
provides access to near-real-time reports on the status of forest and wildfires
around the world at http://www.uni-freiburg.de/fireglobe/
GRID-Geneva also provides Global Forest
and other Wildfires Status Reports every day at: http://www.grid.unep.ch/activities/earlywarning/fires/
OCEANS
The Joint WMO/IOC Technical Commission
for Oceanography and Marine Meteorology: JCOMM (formerly Integrated Global
Ocean Services System - IGOSS) Electronic Products Bulletin at http://iri.ldeo.columbia.edu/climate/monitoring/ipb/
provides interactive graphical viewing of several global oceanographic
data sets, including sea surface temperature and precipitation anomalies
that show El Niño and related phenomena.
CORAL
REEFS
A near-real-time chart of unusually
warm sea surface temperatures associated with coral bleaching is available
from US NOAA at http://psbsgi1.nesdis.noaa.gov:8080/PSB/EPS/SST/climo&hot.html
.
As
more observation programmes become operational and are linked to rapid
mechanisms for quality control and analysis, the near-real-time presentation
of data on the state of the environment for decision-making will increase.
Earthwatch is helping to catalyze the integration of these flows of information
into a coherent global environmental information system.
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