Project gallery @home edition 2020

Climate Detectives @home is an ESA education project that challenges, students aged 12 – 18 years, and families to monitor our planet from home by looking from above.

From their vantage point in space, astronauts and satellites can see both the beauty and the fragility of our planet. You can also observe Earth from home and work like a real Earth scientist!

Participants were asked to choose an Earth observation image, using the EO Browser online tool, the ESA Earth Observation Image of the week gallery or the ESA astronauts’ Flickr accounts. In addition to the image, participants had to provide a short description linking the image to a climate problem.

 

Project title: Australia Fires

Category: Atmosphere and air pollution

Author: Shriyadita Sengupta Student’s age: 14 years old

Image source: ESA EO image of the week

Description:

Australia’s lethal forest fires started with small bushfires that sparked in September 2019. These forest fires spread throughout the country and burned approximately 50 million acres. They continued till February 2020.
Countless animals were affected and at least thirty four people died. Places like New South Wales and Victoria were affected very badly and more than 6000 houses were destroyed by the fires. Reports say that there had been a drought since 2017 which contributed to these massive fires. The climate, being hot and dry contributed a lot to the whole disaster too.

Researchers have confirmed that climate change caused by humans had an impact on the devastating wildfires. These human-caused changes in the climate are making these highly risky conditions that led to extensive burning about 30 percent more likely than they were in 1900. But the wildfires are very complex and hard to understand so researchers are still arguing about what exactly caused the fires. Although a lot of damage has been done already, if humans start getting more conscious about climate changes, it may be possible to prevent any more damage.

Images and descriptions are submitted by the teams/individuals and they take the full responsibility of the shared data.

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