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Posted on: November 2, 2009 9:48 AM, by Isis the Scientist
Stacy Baker from Miss Baker's Biology Class Dot Com and the Extreme Biology blog tweeted this last night:
I am absolutely mesmerized, watching the traffic patterns. What I think is remarkable is the shift in air traffic density as you see the pattern of light/dark change. I'm also fascinated by the patterns at the extreme top and bottom of the map. I can't hep but wonder where those people are going...
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Comments
No area over land ever goes completely free of air traffic. Wow.
Posted by: Pascale | November 2, 2009 10:44 AM
Are you serious? Get Little I, a globe and a length of string....
Posted by: BikeMonkey | November 2, 2009 11:09 AM
BikeMonkey nailed it. Check out Great Circle Mapper for more info. I'm in the biz.
Posted by: stickypaws | November 2, 2009 11:45 AM
The ones going over the far north are routes for which it's shorter to go through the Arctic circle. I've been on a few like that (one many years ago Tokyo-Moscow, and one this year Singapore-Moscow). It's pretty cool because when you fly in winter, you get to watch the sun set and then come up again due to latitude.
Posted by: Articubone | November 2, 2009 6:45 PM
Yea, and don't forget there are Pacific islands and New Zealand.
Posted by: A friendly fellow -- perhaps too friendly | November 3, 2009 3:13 AM
It's worth pointing out that New Zealand, at least, and probably Australia, South Africa, Argentina, and Chile, run sightseeing flights over Antarctica on a fairly regular basis.
Posted by: BrianX | November 3, 2009 12:10 PM
I, too have been over the Arctic Ocean by airplane--in my case I was on my way from Newark to Beijing (as this was July we were in daylight for the entire 13.5 hour trip). Part of it is following great circle routes, but prevailing winds are also a factor: this is why flights from North America to Asia tend to operate at higher latitudes than flights from Asia to North America (my return flight PEK-EWR went over Alaska, not the Arctic Ocean), and also why westbound flights at mid-latitudes take longer than eastbound flights (the difference is about an hour on US transcontinental flights and a bit more than an hour on transatlantic flights).
There is enough transatlantic traffic that you can easily spot diurnal variations: almost all eastbound transatlantic passenger flights are overnight flights (only for a handful of city pairs can you leave the US late enough and arrive in Europe early enough for a same-day flight to be profitable), while the westbound flights tend to be in the afternoon.
Posted by: Eric Lund | November 4, 2009 2:30 PM