Null Island Is One of many Most Visited Locations on Earth. Too Unhealthy It Would not Exist
It doesn’t appear to be a lot of a spot to go to. Granted, I’ve by no means really been there, however I feel I can think about it: the vastness of ocean, overcast skies, a heavy humidity within the air. No land in sight, with the one distinguishing characteristic being a lonely buoy, arising and down within the water. It nearly looks like a “non-place,” however it could shock you to study that this web site is much from nameless. This spot is a hive of exercise on the earth of geographic data techniques (GIS).
So far as digital geospatial information is anxious, it could be probably the most visited locations on Earth! That is Null Island.
Inventive fantasy map of Null Island. Graphic by Ian Cairns on GitHub 2013.
Null Island is an imaginary island situated at 0°N 0°E (therefore “Null”) within the South Atlantic Ocean. This level is the place the equator meets the prime meridian. The precise origins of “Null Island” are a bit murky, but it surely did attain a large viewers no later than in 2011 when it was drawn into Natural Earth, a public area map dataset developed by volunteer cartographers and GIS analysts. In making a one-square meter plot of land at 0°N 0°E within the digital dataset, Null Island was meant to assist analysts flag errors in a course of referred to as “geocoding.”
Geocoding is a perform carried out in a GIS that includes taking information containing addresses and changing them into geographic coordinates, which might then be simply mapped. For instance, an information desk of buildings in Washington, DC might embrace the Madison Constructing of the Library of Congress (the place I’m reporting from) as a characteristic and embrace its deal with: 101 Independence Avenue SE, Washington, DC, 20540. This deal with sometimes is sensible to the layperson, however to place the deal with on a map utilizing a GIS, the pc wants a translation. A “geocoder” converts this deal with into its location as set of coordinates in latitude and longitude, a format {that a} GIS understands. On this case, the Madison Constructing’s geographic location turns into 38° 53′ 12″N, 77° 0′ 18″W (38.886667, -77.005 in decimal diploma format). Anybody who has ever typed in an deal with on Google Maps or regarded up driving instructions on Mapquest has been a beneficiary of this instrument: kind in an deal with, get a pin on a map.
Sadly, because of human typos, messy information, and even glitches within the geocoder itself, the geocoding course of doesn’t at all times run so easily. Misspelled avenue names, non-existent constructing numbers, and different quirks can create invalid addresses that may confuse a geocoder in order that the output turns into “0,0”. Whereas this output signifies that an error occurred, since “0,0” is in actual fact a location on the Earth’s floor in keeping with the coordinate system, the characteristic will probably be mapped there, as nonsensical as the placement could also be. We find yourself with an island of misfit information.
The zero latitude, zero longitude location of “Null Island”-fame is predicated on the World Geodetic System 1984 (WGS84), a commonly-used world reference system for modeling the Earth that’s the usual for the Division of Protection and the World Positioning System (GPS). Technically, in the event you have been geocoding in one other coordinate system or map projection (that are primarily completely different frameworks for adapting the Earth onto a sphere, ellipsoid, airplane, or different form for measurement and mapping), the place of “0,0” could possibly be in one in all 1000’s of areas world wide (A fun mapping experiment by Kenneth Field, Craig Williams, and David Burrows goes additional down this rabbit gap). However for most traditional geocoding, chances are high, in the event you’ve ever geocoded less-than-perfect information and didn’t test your outcomes, a few of your information factors have in all probability visited this one peculiar spot within the Gulf of Guinea.
Sending geospatial information factors off to Null Island, so to talk, is a recognizable sight amongst GIS professionals the world over. As a cartographer within the Geography and Map Division with fairly a little bit of geocoding expertise beneath my belt, this phenomenon is actually acquainted to me. This shared expertise amongst geographers has fed the mystique of Null Island, with GIS lovers creating fantasy maps, a “nationwide” flag, and articles detailing Null Island’s wealthy (and pretend) historical past on-line. The mystique, after all, is all simply in good enjoyable, though loads of maps within the Geography and Map Division are simply that: fantasy maps originating from one’s personal creativeness and speaking attention-grabbing views on artwork, tradition, and know-how.
That stated, you should still be pondering that the importance of the placement of Null Island is little greater than a geographer’s inside joke. However keep in mind that lone buoy? That’s Station 13010 (also called “Soul”), a NOAA climate commentary buoy. Completely anchored at 0°N 0°E, Soul collects information on air temperature, water temperature, wind pace, wind route and different variables as a part of the Prediction and Research Moored Array in the Atlantic (PIRATA) program. Observations collected by Soul and different buoys within the PIRATA community assist analysis into weather conditions and climate forecasting within the Tropical Atlantic and past.
An ATLAS buoy from the PIRATA program, just like the one on the “Null Island” web site. Photograph by Nationwide Information Buoy Middle, Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Null Island is a curious mix of actual and imaginary geography, of mathematical certainty and pure fantasy. Or it’s simply the positioning of a climate commentary buoy. Nevertheless you see it, we have now the GIS world to thank for placing Null Island on the map…in its personal, unusual means.
This text was initially printed in Worlds Revealed, the official weblog of the Geography and Map Division of the Library of Congress, as “The Geographical Oddity of Null Island.”