Sea ice can be described as frozen seawater floating on the surface of the polar oceans. It does not include icebergs or ice shelves, as these are originating from glaciers, rather than sea water. Sea ice becomes thickest and most widespread over the respective winter months in each hemisphere, covering the oceans around the Arctic and Antarctic with millions of square kilometres of ice. It melts when the seasons change, but in the Arctic large areas remain covered all year around, while Antarctic sea ice melts away over the summer in the southern hemisphere.
Tag Archives: cartogram
Connecting people: A world map of undersea cables
Despite satellite technology, global communication heavily relies on undersea cables to keep people connected. “A submarine communications cable is a cable laid on the sea bed between land-based stations to carry telecommunication signals across stretches of ocean.” (Wikipedia) Undersea cables are the backbone of the internet, so that being connected determines a region’s ability to participate in global communication flows.
The following cartogram shows data from Greg’s Cable Map reprojected onto an equal population projection, giving a perspective of how people rather than land areas are connected to the global communications infrastructure. Landing points where the cables connect to land are marked as red dots in the map, while the background also shows very faded shipping lanes (over sea) as well as the gridded cartogram projection (over land):
Home Ownership in Britain
Housing has always been a decisive and sometimes divisive political issue. Home ownership has of course long been an aspiration for many people, and in the post-war period between 1953 and 1971 the number of households renting and owning reached an equal level, as documented in official census statistics for England and Wales. Ownership then surpassed renting, reaching its peak in 2001 at 69%. In the decade that followed, this number went down to 64%. The following two maps show the ownership rate in the UK in a conventional and an equal population projection:
Global HIV Prevalence
As part of the new Sustainable Development Goal 3 which aims to “ensure healthy lives and promote well-being for all at all ages” the UN concludes, that “the incidence of [HIV] has declined globally since 2000. […] The incidence of HIV was highest in sub-Saharan Africa, with 1.5 new cases per 1,000 uninfected people.” Despite longer term positive trends, a recent UNAIDS report stated that “new HIV infections among adults have stalled, failing to decline for at least five years.” This shows that HIV remains a global challenge that needs continuing prevention efforts and ongoing awareness and education. In 2015 it was estimated that globally 34.0 to 39.8 million people are living with HIV. The following cartogram shows the countries of the world resized according to the adult population (aged 15-49) living with HIV, complemented by two maps showing the corresponding relative percentages:
Beyond fire and ice: Mapping Iceland in the 21st Century
Iceland and maps have a long tradition in the history of cartography. From the first maps of the country in the 16th century (including works from cartographers such as Ortelius and Mercator, also featuring some nice sea monsters) to today’s advanced digital mappings of Iceland’s diverse natural environment (such as this innovative mapping of water in Iceland or this quite beautiful representation of contour lines), Iceland never really had a lack of quite good cartographic works. Much less covered than the natural environment are the social landscapes of the country, such as this just recently updated version of a gridded population cartogram of the country where each grid cell is proportional to the number of people living in that area:
Renewable Energy
Renewable energy is defined as ‘energy from a source that is not depleted’. Main sources include biomass, hydropower, wind, biofuels, solar, heat pumps, biogas, geothermal, and marine (such as tidal power). Data by the International Energy Agency sees the share of renewable energy in global power generation at 22 per cent in 2013, with an estimated increase to 26 per cent by 2020 as a result of supportive policies by a large number of governments.
