Description
The project involves comparing climate observations from across North America to downscaled climate predictions for Wisconsin using 15 different climate models. There are two time spans, 2046-2065 and 2081-2100, for each set of predictions. The visualization will also take into consideration three different carbon emission scenarios. The state of Wisconsin will be divided into cells (.1 degree latitude by .1 degree longitude) with an analog displayed somewhere within North America.
Desired outcomes
An interactive map and accompanying geo-visual analytic tool will be produced. The visualizations will be designed for display online, with the data residing in a database accessible though standard web requests.
Reading List
Shneiderman, B. 1994. Dynamic Queries for Visual Information Seeking. IEEE Softw. 11, 6 (Nov. 1994), 70-77.
Eick, S. G. 1994. Data visualization sliders. In Proceedings of the 7th Annual ACM Symposium on User interface Software and Technology (Marina del Rey, California, United States, November 02 – 04, 1994). UIST ’94. ACM, New York, NY, 119-120.
Nakhimovsky, Y., Miller, A. T., Dimopoulos, T., and Siliski, M. 2010. Behind the scenes of google maps navigation: enabling actionable user feedback at scale. In Proceedings of the 28th of the international Conference Extended Abstracts on Human Factors in Computing Systems (Atlanta, Georgia, USA, April 10 – 15, 2010). CHI EA ’10. ACM, New York, NY, 3763-3768.
Timetable
Week 1: Gather all of the data from the Jack Williams lab and create a relational database for the different carbon emission scenarios, climate models and time spans.
Week 2: Create an interactive map capable of defining each cell within Wisconsin. The map should have the same basic navigational capabilities as Google maps, Yahoo or Bing.
Week 3: Begin integrating the climate data with the maps of Wisconsin and North America. Every cell on either map should have the capability of displaying the relevant data for a given location.
Week 4: Build a geo-visual analytic tool that shows the original Wisconsin data point and the distance to all of the related points for North America. I’ll have a better idea what this will look like after working with the data.
Description
The final visualization will contain two maps side-by-side. The map on the left will allow the user to navigate the state of Wisconsin in order to select a cell for comparison. Once a cell has been selected, the map on the right will show all of the results in relation to the Wisconsin cell. Lines will be draw between the original cell and all of the results, with the ability to mouse-over each line to display the distance and bearing. Drop down menus will allow the user to select different scenarios, models and time spans for unique database queries. I’ll add the ability to switch base tiles so that a user can evaluate the landscape using aerial photos, road networks or a hybrid of both. A tool for analyzing the relationship between the original cell and each result will reside below the set of maps.