Google Earth's New 'Timelapse' Feature Dramatically Reveals 37 Years Of Climate Change

LOS ANGELES (CBSLA) - Google Earth is out with a new feature that uses eye-opening technology to visualize the chilling effect of climate change over the past 37 years.

Timelapse is an interactive 4D experience that lets users click through 24 million satellite photos taken from 1984 to 2020, an effort Google said took two million processing hours across thousands of machines in Google Cloud.

The new tool features a single pixel for every location on earth for every one of those years -- pieced together into a time-lapse video. Users can watch cities spread and coastlines shift and erode over a period of four decades. It highlights melting ice caps, receding glaciers, urban growth and wildfires' impact on agriculture.

"Visual evidence can cut to the core of the debate in a way that words cannot and communicate complex issues to everyone," said Rebecca Moore, a director of Google Earth, in a blog post on April 15.

To explore Timelapse in Google Earth, users can type any location into the search bar to see it in motion, whether it's a landmark or the neighborhood where you grew up.

The company worked with several organizations to create the technology, including NASA, the U.S. Geological Survey's Landsat program, the European Union's Copernicus program and its Sentinel satellites, and Carnegie Mellon University's CREATE Lab.

The company says it hopes governments, researchers, journalists, teachers and advocates will analyze the imagery, identify trends and share their findings.

"Timelapse in Google Earth is about zooming out to assess the health and well-being of our only home, and is a tool that can educate and inspire action," Moore says.

Google Earth will be updated with new Timelapse imagery throughout the next decade, she adds.