Previously, I highlighted work my old colleague and friend Pete Webley has done using Google Earth to model volcanic ash plumes. Another former King’s College colleague (and teacher) has been also been working with Google Earth. Mark Mulligan has posted online a large collection of KML files for a wide variety of geodata including satellite data on cloud climatology, a database of global place names, urban climate data, tropical land use change data, and much more.

KML files are used in Google products, such as Google Earth or Google Maps, to display geographic data. The data Mark has posted on the King’s server are freely accessible to all for non-commercial use. you can visualise the data in Google Earth and, in many cases, links to the actual downloadable GIS files also provided. Many of the datasets are works in progress and new data will continue to be posted in the future, so keep checking back.

The availability of data such as these, and projects such as Pete’s, really show how Google Earth can be used for so much more than virtual tours of other places or previews of you next holiday destination… [Speaking of which, I’m off to Utah snowboarding next week so hopefully I’ll have some new pics to post on my own Google-enabled photos page.]