Even more maps, with a twist

In this opening view from this video here, doesn't the Grand Canyon appear inverted to you? As in the deep parts pop up instead of down!

click to enlarge 

Well, following on this post here, I referred to a LinkedIn article here, where I explain at the bottom how to make relief appear the right side up:

In order to see the topography "right side up", I posted the map picture upside down & copied source text over: it's a trick to work around the optical illusion that appears to reverse map relief; see Topography & Geomorphology halfway down Poster Catalog blog.

This article in the Guardian here, moreover, prompted me to revisit that trick. It appears that artists used it also for an entirely different purpose. They ask:

Is it a bald elderly man with a big bushy beard and a wine-addled stare? Or a friendly young woman with flowing locks and a crown of braids?

screen capture from article above

So, here is what happens if you do the same in my map illustration mentioned atop:

click to enlarge

At left with North at the top, the oceans in tan appear to pop up from the landmass in purple. Turning the image upside-down at right restores the oceans as appearing to be basins below the land mass.

Check also this story map here, for a more complete explanation about field mapping forty years ago (emphasis added here):

1 - Early days

This is what started it, a social media post on stereo viewing. Be it in university field school in Alberta or Ontario CAN, or field work in the Rocky Mountains or Arctic Islands described next, I worked on stereo airphoto pairs... anyone remember those? I had to force my brain to make topography show high points up*. The trick? Do away with stereo lenses and make yourself look way past the photo toward an imaginary horizon, then your eyes remove parallax and restore the 3D view and right-side-up relief.[...]

*: it's an optical illusion that relief appears inverted unless it's  lit from the NW . And since most landscape is lit from the South in the Northern hemisphere, air photo and satellite imagery are prone to such 'inversion'.

"All you have to do is ask AI", sometimes

 Let's follow on this post here about more intriguing geomorphology (land forms underpinned by geology), with a little help from AI in the first instance.

Hungary 

LinkedIn @markku-ylisirniö posted here a cool map of Hungary:

screen grab from original post, click to enlarge 

East Anglia environment in a global context

 This follows on blogposts about East Anglia in general here. The last post on infrastructure affected by sea level rise is here. Contrast below Environment England's Risk of flooding from river and from sea at left for waters coming naturalls from onshore & offsore, and my Seal level rise model by simply intersecting various sea level elevations and Ordnance Survey topogaphy (intro here and workshop here). Think of it below as fresh water largely going NE to the North Sea at left, and at right as sea water encroaching largely SW onto the land:

A Roman Holiday

This follows on a map story here.

Update : check out below how a new map, itiner-e, updated the Roman Roads view.

Update 2: speaking of malaria in second map, appended maps on trade routes that triggered the Black Plague in the 14th c. Mediterranean.

Not William Wilder's 1953 Gregory Peck & Audrey Hepburn flick (Wikipedia)! When drawing up a map of Apostolic Palestine for local Catholics, I ran across Ancient World Mapping Center (AWMC) at UNC-Chapel Hill. While their web app (ArcGIS Online) is a cool one-stop-shop for their rich data set - for ex. I cannot do point clustering (Comet Assistant) with my standard Argis Pro desktop license -  I loaded, picked apart an re-sorted some of their data for some interesting insights. 

AI to recreate a lost picture

This follows on AI "lessons-learned, lessons shared", last post here and master post here.

Here is another use of Google Gemini AI. A LinkedIn discussion here described fog/cloud banks in Cen. & Nor. Cal. against nearby ridges.  I commented on same viz. Yucaipa Valley & Ridge in So. Cal. Here is my comment:

How to build AI Agents

This follows on my AI "lessons-learned,  lessons-shared" mainly on my Ongoing Crash Course pinned atop this blog, that links all items on my various socials.

Maryam Maradi (LinkedIn) shared on-going how-to's I pay-forward here to the rest of the world. I posted the texts on the links below her excellent posters also in-text (click to enlarge). My (liked) comment on her second post was:

This is so excellent! I'm a geologist & GIS-er of 40-odd yrs., w interest in geophysics in general & seismic in particular. I have never seen such a comprehensive review and sign of hope for disaster response... Thanks!

Samurai in early 1600s Spain!

This follows on from a map story here. A follow-up is here.

Update: fascinating twist in failed outreach by Elizabeth I to China below.

Update 2: mid-19th c. 2nd mission to France mapped the same way @ bottom.

I thought that So. Cal. Spanish missions were early (mid-18th c.)... well here's an earlier story of intrepid early diplomats & missionaries - not seasoned sailors as Longest tall ships routes here - after long-distance missionaries of the Apostolic Levant here. Perplexity opens here as:

More map art, Part II

This follows on a map story here. The next one is here. 

The original "More map art" is  here: a world map in Natural Earth projection with Mean Annual Climate Temperatures and Natural Earth countries.

Equal Earth vs. Spilhaus projection, masking onshore areas

The original post starts as "a few years ago I used Charlie Frye's online lesson Explore future climate projections to learn how to use NetCDF and map temperature regimes - it's shown below in Patterson & Savaric's Equal Earth Projection..."

2050 Scenario? Atlantic Meridional Overturning Circulation (AMOC)

This follows on a map story here.  The next one is here.

After revisiting a number of topics for just over a year here, let's address an item of some urgency: stalling the Gulf Stream may end Western Europe's historic privilege; to be a warm enclave between two 'normal' bands at its latitudes. It's not an Ice Age but think how much colder New York and Montreal are than London or Paris. 

It may be hard to wrap our minds around cooling at a time where climate warming hits the headlines - and rightfully so -  and before climate deniers jump on this, please consult the scientific consensus behind all this under two Microsoft Copilot headings at the bottom: AMOC update, a political declaration of Nordic countries affected and estimated timeline of its collapse.

Update: AMOC collapse effect presented at the National Emergency Briefing last week in London here HT YouTube @JustHaveaThink

Longest haul flights, longest rivers, longest tall ships routes & bonus map

This follows on a map story here. The next one is here.

A series of maps are posted here; they're in desktop and map or poster but not web format as explained here & here; sit back folks, relax & enjoy the map story time...

I repost a cool map on long haul flights: I grew up taking earlier ones over 50 yrs. ago; one of the carriers I used, Qantas just announced here jets that can fly Sydney to New York or London direct! Next is a new map of the longest rivers from a website priding itself of its visualisations: I used previous techniques and cannot decide which works best; perhaps you the reader can help?

Update: added a long section on longest sailing routes by 18-19 c. tall ships (think Cutty Sark here).

Update 2: this post here follows on this series of offline maps