THE ANTHROPOCENE: THROUGH THE ORBITAL PERSPECTIVE OF TIME-SERIES IMAGERY OF EARTH

Satellite imagery of Earth clearly shows large-scale products of earth systems and depictions of system interactions, often awesomely so. These orbital perspectives also commonly reveal the rapid, pervasive transformation of the surface of Earth by myriad human activities, a nod to the Anthropocene. Time-series images of specific localities – images of locations taken over intervals of time – demonstrate dramatic changes to settings and rapid responses of systems to human activities. This “time-lapse” imagery captures and chronicles attributes of the Great Acceleration. They document that humans have become a dominant geologic force and are a primary change agent in the Earth system.

Online image archives from NASA’s Earth Observatory (EO) (https://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/) and Benjamin Grant’s Overview (OV) (https://www.over-view.com/) provide easy access to such imagery. Evidences of our entry into the Anthropocene are explicitly displayed in ever-growing repositories of captioned, cataloged images. Many images, time-series or not, are linked to planetary dashboard indicators of ubiquitous human activity and impact. Such indicators are tied to urbanization, land-use change and landscape disturbance, food production and agricultural practices, energy generation, water use, earth-material extraction, atmospheric alteration and response, global climate change, perturbed system response, implications for biodiversity and human adaptation, and transitions to greater sustainability. EO has special collections that focus on Human Presence and World of Change, among many categories highlighting recent, rapid, ongoing environmental changes. OV collections are indexed specifically by human activities. Other excellent online resources (EarthTime, EROS, etc.) also provide visualizations of recent Earth transformations.

Such images and their interpretations can evoke emotions among viewers, prompting senses of awe, agitation, and activism. When thoughtfully curated and shown to audiences in informal settings, their use serves to raise awareness and understanding as well as to captivate and motivate. In formal educational settings, focused, purposeful usage of these image archives can make for engaging, potentially transformative discussions and other learning activities.