Google Earth Engine
Noel Gorelick
Who Am I?
"The software guy" on 6 NASA Mars missions
Engineer at Google for 9 years
Author Google Mars and Google Moon
Co-founder Google Earth Engine
Google's Mission
Organize the world's information and
make it universally accessible and useful.
My Mission
Organize the world's information and
make it universally accessible and useful.
scientific
v
The Saga of Landsat
Series of 8 satellites
Continuous record since 1972
Multiband optical and thermal
Data became "free" in 2008
The Saga of Landsat
Only 3.5M scenes out of ~7.1M in the catalog (4.1 PB)The rest are held at international receiving stations
The Saga of Landsat
Only 3.5M scenes out of ~7.1M in the catalog (4.1 PB)The rest are held at international receiving stationsTapes blocked at the border by the Army
The Saga of Landsat
Only 3.5M scenes out of ~7.1M in the catalog (4.1 PB)The rest are held at international receiving stationsTapes blocked at the border by the Army35 year old tapes …
The Saga of Landsat
Only 3.5M scenes out of ~7.1M in the catalog (4.1 PB)The rest are held at international receiving stationsTapes blocked at the border by the Army35 year old tapes … have to be baked in an oven before reading
The Saga of Landsat
3 years to download the entire archiveProcessed from tape, on demand
USGS Download Stats: http://landsat.usgs.gov/Landsat_Project_Statistics.php
What did we do with all that data?
29 yearsof satellite data
2,068,467landsat scenes
909terabytes
2,000,000hours of computation
66,000CPUs
on
https://googleblog.blogspot.ch/2013/05/a-picture-of-earth-through-time.html
We made a video!
We made a video!
24 Terapixels
We made a video!
24 Terapixels
We made a video!
24 Terapixels
We made a video!
24 Terapixels
We made a video!
24 Terapixels
TimeLapse
Launched with Time MagazineThousands of embedsMillions of views
So what?
So what?
These guys...
live here...
So what?
724,000 km2 forest loss in Brazil since 1970 (17%)It's visible from space, "just" need a deforestation detector
Earth Engine
Earth Engine
Earth Engine
WhyStarted by for public benefit
Operationalize science, at scale
GoalsRemove access and capacity barriers
Foster open science
Promote transparency, reproducibility & collaboration
Maximum throughput, minimum latency
WhyStarted by for public benefit
Operationalize science, at scale
GoalsRemove access and capacity barriers
Foster open science
Promote transparency, reproducibility & collaboration
Maximum throughput, minimum latency
Build the world's most advanced geospatial analysis platform
Goals
Build the world's most advanced geospatial analysis platform
Goals
… so we don't all die.
Build the world's most advanced geospatial analysis platform
Goals
to help solve the world's biggest challenges… so we don't all die.
Build the world's most advanced geospatial analysis platform
Goals
DeforestationDroughtDiseaseFamineFloodingFireEarthquakes
… so we don't all die.
Build the world's most advanced geospatial analysis platform
to help solve the world's biggest challenges
Global Forest Extent and Change
Source: Hansen, Potapov, Moore, Hancher et al. , Science, 15 November 2013
Drought Monitoring
Source: Hansen, Potapov, Moore, Hancher et al. , Science, 15 November 2013Desert Research Institute - Justin Huntington and Charles Morton
Global Surface Water
Source: Pekel, Belward, Cotton & Gorelick, 2015
Global Crop Map
Source: Prasad Thenkabai, Jun Xiong, USGS
Disease Early Warning: Malaria Risk
Swaziland National Malaria Control Program / UCSF Global Health Group
Earthquake Ground Velocity Prediction
Source: David Lallemant, Stanford
Global Development
DMSP-OLS Nighttime persistent lights
What Is Earth Engine
A "big data" platform for remote sensing
A fast computation & visualization system,
for global-scale geospatial analysis,
with a large scientific data catalog.
Scientific Data Catalog
Imagery
Landsat 4, 5, 7, 85,500,000 scenes
30+ MODIS Level 2Daily, NBAR, LST, ...
Sentinel-1 GRD
Sentinel-2
Hyperion / ALINAIP, ASTER, ...
Scientific Data Catalog
ImageryGeophysical
TerrainSRTM, ETOPO, GMTEDHIRES Global DEM project
Landcover Cropland Surface Temperature Other
Global forest change, canopy heightBiomass estimates, Burned areas, Vegetation continuous fields
Scientific Data Catalog
ImageryGeophysicalClimate & Weather
MOD08 TOMS & OMI Ozone NCEP/NARR Precipitation
TRMM, Daymet, RTMA, CHRIPSCFSV2, GFS, PERSIANN
Forecast and ReanalysisNEX DCP-30, MACA, NLDAS, GLDAS,
GRIDMET
Scientific Data Catalog
ImageryGeophysicalClimate & Weather
More than 250 public datasetsContinuously Updated +4000 images/day5.5 PB
Pick your: projection, resolution, bands, bounding-box, visualization
What Can It Do?
Get an Image
What Can It Do?
Library functions or your own script
Get an Image
Apply an algorithm to an image
What Can It Do?
Time, Space, Metadata
Get an Image
Apply an algorithm to an image
Filter a collection
N → N
Get an Image
Apply an algorithm to an image
Filter a collection
Map an algorithm over a collection
What Can It Do?
N → 1 or N → M
What Can It Do?
Get an Image
Apply an algorithm to an image
Filter a collection
Map an algorithm over a collection
Reduce a collection
What Can It Do?
Get an Image
Apply an algorithm to an image
Filter a collection
Map an algorithm over a collection
Reduce a collection
Compute an aggregate
What Can It Do?
Good At
Band mathSpectral unmixingML ClassificationSegmentation,Template matchingTexture analysis
Parallelizable Operations
Bad At
Finite Element AnalysisHydrologic FlowIteration and Recursion