Kitazume shows off the Tangible Earth to students

Students of the Japanese School and Al Yarmouk Independent Preparatory School for Boys were able to feel one of the 10 “Tangible Earth” models worldwide, the world’s first digital globe that provides information about the planet, at Japanese Ambassador Yukio Kitazume’s residence during the last two days.
Produced by Shin-ichi Takemura of Kyoto University of Art and Design, Tangible Earth is the first interactive digital globe, which can spin freely when touched by hands and display when connected to the Internet, real time graphics about various global phenomena.
The globe also stores data about earlier global phenomena, such as displaying how the tsunami started and struck so many countries.
Cultural affairs attaché of the embassy, Hiromi Amano, explained that on Tangible Earth globe, weather patterns and day and night are updated hourly via the Internet, displaying views of the atmospheric and oceanic currents.
She said that the globe presented data on global warming generated by the earth simulator supercomputer visualised in combination with information from near real time data feeds.
The combined results shed the light on the mechanisms behind the climatic changes which are triggering the El Nino southern oscillation, the Indian Ocean dipole and other weather aberrations.
Amano pointed out that the remote sensing technologies using satellites help us monitor activities in the Amazon basin and more rapidly assess disaster relief efforts.
She noted that the observed data from recent tragedies such as Cyclone Nargis and the Sumatra tsunami can be reviewed on the Tangible Earth globe visualisations while introducing real time earth observation technologies.
Putting real time assessments together with such case-studies help in the prevention and early warning systems, such as what will be the weather like next year and when and where will there be floods or drought.