I don’t know about you, but I always thought this was a beautiful image:
I decided to fix it per this article, and make a large (1920×960) animated version. The result is here. It’s 7MB, so please wait for it to load. Right-click and save image in case wordpress is annoying. I made it my wallpaper, and so can you!
Enjoy 🙂 -Zoe
# Zoe Phin, 2021/02/14
# File: terra.sh
# Run: source terra.sh; require; download; fix; animate
require() { sudo apt-get install -y netpbm imagemagick; }
download() {
list=$(wget -qO- 'https://neo.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/view.php?datasetId=BlueMarbleNG' | grep '"viewDataset' | cut -f2 -d "'" | tr '\n' ' ')
let n=1
for si in $list; do
N=$(printf "%02d" $n)
wget -O terra$N.jpg "https://neo.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/servlet/RenderData?si=$si&cs=rgb&format=JPEG&width=1920&height=960"
let n++
done
}
fix() {
for jpg in `ls -1 terra*.jpg`; do
pnm=${jpg/.jpg/.pnm}
echo -e 'P3\n1920 960\n255\n' > $pnm
jpegtopnm $jpg | pnmtoplainpnm | sed 1,3d | sed 's/ /\n/g' | awk '{printf "%03d %03d %03d ", $1, $2, $3}' | fold -w23040 > .tmp
cut -c1-756 .tmp > .right
cut -c756- .tmp > .left
paste -d '' .left .right >> $pnm
pnmtopng $pnm > $jpg
done
rm -f *.pnm
}
animate() { convert -delay 50 -loop 0 terra*.jpg animterra.gif; }
Zoe's Insights 
Very nice! Politically incorrect to show that Svalbard has snow all year round, though 😉
https://climate.rutgers.edu/snowcover/table_area.php?ui_set=2
If you plot weekly data from 1972 for northern hemisphere, and also plot 53-week average, it can be seen that there is no declining trend (according to http://www.climate4you.com)
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Oh yeah? Is Svalbard warming a propaganda talking point in Norway?
P.S. This animation is just the year 2004, looped. It’s just 12 (Jan-Dec) beautiful cloudless images prepared by NASA in 2012.
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Yes. Svalbard =climate catastrophy, melting permafrost and all of that. I think the norwegian meteorological institute has forgotten all about AMO, and also forgotten that the Norwegian Polar Institute has 57 000 aerial photos dating from as early as 1932. It can be clearly seen, that in the 1930s, it was just as warm at Svalbard.
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For thise who are interested:
https://toposvalbard.npolar.no/tsmini.html
Switch to English, and it should be fairly easy to understand. Click map and old aerial photos. Compare to recent satellite images
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Lovely !
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