Tutorial Video
Previous Version
This is the second major iteration of the Fluid Earth project. The previous
version, Fluid Earth Viewer, has
weather data from earlier years and climate data that we are still working on
adding to this new version, Fluid Earth. If you need to access this data, or
really liked the previous version's look and feel, click the link above to get
redirected.
The Project
Fluid Earth is an interactive web application that allows you to visualize
current and past conditions of Earth's atmosphere and oceans.
You can use Fluid Earth to learn about the atmosphere and oceans by exploring
the daily conditions in places where you live, work, and play or examining whole
regions of the planet over years. In particular, Fluid Earth provides hands-on
visualizations of conditions in polar regions, changes they are undergoing, and
connections between polar regions and the rest of the planet. An open-source
application, Fluid Earth is a vehicle for modern Earth science communication,
making information used by the scientific community accessible and engaging to
everyone. Fluid Earth is explorable 24 hours a day, 7 days a week using your
computer, tablet, or smartphone.
Our project team is working to remove obstacles to learning about our dynamic
planet, Earth!
Fluid Earth in action
To learn about the latest Fluid Earth developments, visit our
blog, or our
video collection showcasing
weather and climate phenomena using Fluid Earth. Or just jump in and start
exploring on your own!
Related publications
- Cervenec, J., Davis, G., Gravina, M. T., & Hamilton, D. (2023). A Tool for
Exploring Our Fluid Earth. Phys. Teach. 61, 432–435.
https://doi.org/10.1119/5.0132110
- Gravina, M. T., Zhan, M., Cai, M., Arens, A., & Cervenec, J. Fluid Earth:
Open-source Visualization of Weather and Climate Data. (2022). GIS Lounge. https://www.gislounge.com/fluid-earth-open-source-visualization-weather-climate-data/
- Fox, J. Peggau, K., Wilson, A., Li, B. Hu, D., Chang, R., Wong, J., & Bossley,
C. Interactive data visualizations of Earth's atmosphere: Effects on student
engagement and perceived learning. Journal of Geoscience Education. 70,
517-529.
https://doi.org/10.1080/10899995.2022.2038963
Our Sponsor
This project is sponsored by the U.S. National Science Foundation as an
Exploratory Pathways project under the Advancing
Informal STEM Learning (AISL) Program.
The Team
The team is comprised of multi-disciplinary researchers and educators from The
Ohio State University committed to improving Earth Science and learning
strategies in diverse education settings.
Members from OSU's Byrd Polar and Climate
Research Center (BPCRC) bring their expertise in education and outreach,
polar weather and climate, and computer information sciences. The team is also
fortunate to have a member from OSU's School of Communication with a wealth of
knowledge on user-testing and the effects and implications of new media
technologies and virtual environments. Together, this team has extensive
experience communicating with public audiences of all ages.
- Jason Cervenec (PI)
- BPCRC Education & Outreach Director
- Oversees project and creation and field-testing of learning experiences
- Jesse Fox
- School of Communication Associate Professor
- Oversees user-testing and virtual environment settings
- Bidhyananda Yadav
- BPCRC Research Associate
- Oversees code development and collaborates with J. Cervenec on
field-testing and learning experiences
- Aaron Wilson
- BPCRC Senior Research Associate
- Collaborates with B. Yadav on code development and with J. Cervenec on
field-testing and learning experiences
- Michael Gravina
- Front-End Developer
- Collaborates with B. Yadav on code development and with J. Cervenec on
field-testing and learning experiences
- Em Zhan
- Front-End and Full-Stack Developer
- Writes and maintains the code
In addition, the team depends on a talented group of undergraduates and Research
Experience for Undergraduates (REU) students working at The Ohio State
University to assist in designing the user interface, conducting user-testing,
organizing data, and producing tutorials: Bingyu (Sophia) Li, Dingyu Hu, Ruiyang
Chang, Joey Wong, Craig Bossley, Mimi Cai, Adelyn Arens, Devan Agrawal, Daniel
Hamilton, and Shaniqwa Martin.
Finally, we'd like to thank the following people from the BPCRC for their
technical expertise in support of the project: Tom Kassebaum and Pam Theodotou.
Data Sources
Fluid Earth utilizes an enormous amount of scientifically complex data, allowing you
to explore the interconnectedness of weather and climate, including between
polar regions and the rest of the planet.
Data sources include:
- Weather
- Global Forecast System (GFS)
- Ocean currents
- Ocean Surface Current Analysis Real-time (OSCAR)
- Sea surface temperature
- Real Time Global Sea Surface Temperature (RTGSST)
- Gases & aerosols
- Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS)
- Climate
- Copernicus Climate Change Service (ERA5)
- Permafrost
- Northern Hemisphere permafrost map (Obu et al., 2018. Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research)
- Locations
- "Basic World Cities Database" by
Pareto Software, LLC, used under
CC BY 4.0
with text reformatted from original
Terms of Use
Copyright 2021 The Ohio State University
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of
this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in
the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to
use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of
the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so,
subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all
copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS
FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR
COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER
IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN
CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
The laws of the State of Ohio shall govern these Terms of Use and any disputes
relating to our site.
IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO AND ACCEPT THESE TERMS OF USE YOU SHOULD NOT USE THE
SOFTWARE.
Recommended citation
When citing Fluid Earth in written materials, we recommend the following
wording:
Fluid Earth, an Educational Tool for Visualizing Earth's Atmosphere, Oceans,
and Permafrost from the Education and Outreach Group at the Byrd Polar and
Climate Research Center (BPCRC), The Ohio State University (OSU).
Third-party libraries
Fluid Earth contains code from third-party libraries. We are very grateful to
the authors of these libraries as this project would not be possible without
their contributions to open-source.
As required, here are the
licence texts for
and
modifications to
these libraries.
Kiosk mode
Fluid Earth can be run in a "kiosk mode", intended for museum displays,
that prevents users from navigating away from the application. To set up
kiosk mode for Chrome on Windows:
- Open Chrome and go to
https://fluid-earth.byrd.osu.edu/#kmode=true
.
- Go to the "..." menu in the upper-right corner and click "More Tools",
"Create Shortcut".
- Change the text to "Fluid Earth kiosk" and click "Create".
- Right-click the new shortcut and click "Properties". In the "Target"
field, scroll to the end and add " --kiosk" (be sure to include the
space). Click OK.
- Double-click the shortcut to open the app.
- Hit "F11" to go to fullscreen.
- Remove the keyboard from the display (since users would be able to use
key commands to circumvent kiosk mode).