New Scientist Environment Blog: It's Google Earth with a time twist. NASA has a collection of satellite images online, available from its TerraLook website, which can be explored free of charge. At first, it seems a bit like a geeky and not very user-friendly version of GoogleEarth. But with a bit a perseverance I think you might find it rewarding.
The twist is that with the NASA tool you can travel back in time. Two drop-down menus allow you to choose the month and year you want to visit and - hey presto! - there you are. Don't get too excited about the resolution - it is not as high as on Google Earth and you won't be tracking the appearance of the house down the street, the one that blocks your view over the valley. But so far, I've found that the weather was extremely cloudy over London during the summer of 1989, and if anything have been rather amazed by the stability of the images over the years. You can definitely see the seasonal greening and yellowing of areas like the countryside around London, and watch lakes shrink.
You may find the most stunning images come from the Amazon forest. I had a hunt around for the scars left by deforestation. NASA have picked a few (pictured left) to demonstrate some remarkable changes. They show the changes at the border between Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay. The top image was taken in 1973, the middle one in 1989 and the last in 2003.
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