Permafrost and vegegation on North America

The web wizards at the National Snow and Ice Data Center have concocted an interactive online map for exploring the Far North or, (if you’re someone with more austral tastes), the Far South.


The Atlas of the Cryosphere starts with a view centered on the northern or southern poles, then allows you to zoom down into smaller regions like Alaska, or zoom back out to take in the satellite perspective. Dozens of options allow you to map permafrost, define snow, sea ice extent, glaciers, the tree line, or even the depth of the Greenland ice sheet.

The atlas, credited to J. Maurer, “should act as a useful tool in science and education efforts surrounding the International Polar Year (IPY) (2007-2008) and beyond by providing a geographic tool for viewing snow and ice on the planet,” the introduction says.

The northern cryosphere

Maps like this aren’t just time-wasting mind-candy. We humans are visual creatures, far more adept at interpreting an array or pattern than the zippiest gig-busting supercomputer. Clicking up one permafrost map with snow cover and treeline and political boundaries might tell you more about the Arctic than slogging through 1,000 dense pages.

And you get to see the Arctic as its own defined region, with Alaska, Canada, Greenland, Scandinavia and Russia out on the rim.