Reading the planet from space,
honestly.
TERRA is an educational Earth-observation dashboard. It brings together the observed state of the El Niño–Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and active wildfires worldwide onto one interactive globe — using only public data from NASA and NOAA, with a source link behind every number.
NASA EONET
no keyEarth Observatory Natural Event Tracker — curated named wildfire incidents worldwide, each keeping its official source (IRWIN, InciWeb, national agencies). Powers the fire log and markers.
NASA FIRMS · VIIRS
no keyFire Information for Resource Management System — raw 375 m thermal detections from the SUOMI-NPP VIIRS instrument, last 24 h. Powers the live satellite-hotspot layer.
NASA GIBS · Worldview
no keyGlobal Imagery Browse Services — time-dimensioned satellite imagery (true-color optical, thermal anomalies). Powers the before/after imagery in the fire detail drawer.
NOAA PSL
no keyPhysical Sciences Laboratory — the observed ENSO indices (ONI, Niño 3.4/3/4/1+2, SOI, MEI, PDO) back to 1948. Powers the ENSO record and dashboard.
Observed vs. illustrative
Every figure on TERRA is real observed data with preserved provenance. We never invent observations, dates, or forecasts. Derived labels (e.g. region-from-coordinate, El Niño events from the CPC ONI rule) are marked as derived. Editorial scenarios and narratives are clearly framed as illustrative — not predictions.
If a source changes format or goes down, the pipeline fails safe: the previous committed data is kept rather than fabricated.
Static, reproducible, daily
Zero-dependency Node ingest scripts pull each public source, normalize to a unified schema, and commit versioned JSON to the repo. The frontend loads it same-origin and renders the globe with globe.gl (three.js). A daily GitHub Action refreshes the data; Vercel auto-deploys.
For educational purposes only. Not financial, investment, agricultural, insurance, or policy advice. Observed data is public from NASA and NOAA; scenarios and narratives are illustrative — not forecasts or guidance. Data may be delayed, incomplete, or revised; verify against official sources. Not affiliated with NASA, NOAA, IRI, WMO, or FAO.