Google unveils software to explore world's oceans

By Paul Rogers, Mercury News

Starting today, if you want to explore the world's oceans — from the bottom of Monterey Bay to Australia's Great Barrier Reef — you won't need a scuba tank or submarine, only a home computer and Internet connection.

Expanding its popular Google Earth software, Mountain View-based Google on Monday unveiled an aquatic component, Google Ocean, that the company said "aims to turn everyone into Jacques Cousteau.''

The new feature, rolled out at a news conference in San Francisco attended by oceanographers and former Vice President Al Gore, combines satellite imagery, underwater photographs, video and scientific data to allow users to see 3-D images of the ocean floor, along with features like the location of shipwrecks and coral reefs.

Marine scientists predicted that the free software will become an important new tool in expanding the public's understanding of the oceans and the environmental challenges facing them. They also said it would be widely embraced by scientists, who are expected to embed massive amounts of data onto the maps.

"Not just sober scientists but the whole world can use this as a way to know the whole world,'' said oceanographer Sylvia Earle, National Geographic explorer-in-residence. "It took a long time for me to be able to see a turtle underwater, now any little kid can do it,'' Earle said.

Google assembled the new software after meeting last year with many of the world's top marine scientists.

The final product — an automatic download with latest version of Google Earth 5.0 — also includes 20 massive data sets including photos and video of marine animals, the boundaries of the world's marine protected areas, daily sea surface temperature changes and arctic sea ice.

The primary information to create the images came from the U.S. Navy, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Scripps Institution of Oceanography in San Diego.

Like Google Earth, which was launched in June 2005, officials expect Google Ocean to offer increasingly detailed information over time as people add new photos and data. The resulting information will not only allow people to see the world, but how it's changing.

During the news conference, Gore talked about his visit to Glacier National Park in the 1990s. While Google Earth images zoomed in on Grinnell Glacier, Gore noted how much it has melted in the past two decades. The new software also features historic information that shows the glacier's size shrinking since 1991.

"It's practically not even a glacier anymore," Gore said. "When I was there not long ago I walked where that pool of water has formed. This is an extremely powerful new tool.

"One of my fondest hopes is that people around the world will use Google Earth to see for themselves the reality of what is happening because of the climate crisis."

Monday's event, a veritable lovefest of ocean leaders, also featured singer Jimmy Buffett, who has worked to protect manatees and other species in Florida. "I play by the water a lot — I don't know who on the planet wouldn't want to go to a tropical climate, particularly this time of year,'' Buffett said as Google Earth images on the screen behind him zoomed around the ocean floor and mountains on the Hawaiian Islands while his song "Margaritaville'' played. "When people go on exhibitions they come back as conservationists.''

Google Earth basically works by creating maps that combine satellite photograph, aerial photography and GIS data to build 3-D images so that computer users can "fly" anywhere like in a video game, from above the Earth down to view mountains, coastlines, cities, even streets and houses. In earlier versions of the software, users could see oceans with some data, but only in two dimensions.

The project is only a first step however. Oceans cover 70 percent of the world's surface, and detailed, high-resolution photographs don't exist for much of the bottom.

Taking high-resolution photographs of every square foot, along with detailed sonar images, will require great investments in time and money.

"It would take billions of dollars. You'd need fleets of unmanned underwater vehicles operating in formation, and some countries wouldn't even let you explore their territorial waters," said Marcia McNutt, president of Monterey Bay Aquarium Research Institute based in Moss Landing. "It would take at least 25 years."

But previous generations have explored the land and the moon and perhaps the coming generation will focus on the oceans, several scientists said today.

"Sometimes it is tempting for us to think we have explored every thing we have to explore," said Terry Garcia, executive vice president of the National Geographic Society. "A tourist can fly to nearly everywhere on the planet, and satellites have mapped nearly every square inch, but there are still places not explored, mysteries still to be answered."