Google Earth Timelapse: See how these Canadian cities have changed

New Google timelapse tool Google launches new comprehensive Earth timelapse tool. Watch how cities in Canada and around the world have changed over the last 35 years

From Vancouver’s intensifying density to Iqaluit’s gradual growth, Canadians will be able to see for themselves how cities have evolved over the past 35 years thanks to satellite imagery and Google time-lapse technology.

In honour of Earth Week this month, Google Earth Timelapse has updated its global database to include two additional years of imagery to the time-series visualization so it now spans from 1984 to 2018.

Using Google Earth Engine, a computing platform for processing and analyzing satellite imagery, the project’s developers were able to combine more than 15 million images collected over three decades by five satellites to create 35 global cloud-free annual mosaics.

According to a Google blog post, the satellite images came from the U.S. Geological Survey/NASA Landsat and European Sentinel programs. Google also collaborated with Carnegie Mellon University’s CREATE Lab to make the Timelapse videos interactive for users, which means they will be able to zoom in and pan to explore specific places.

The Canadian cities featured in the update include Vancouver, Toronto, Montreal, Fort McMurray, Alta., Sherbrooke, Que., Woodlands County, Alta., Winnipeg, Iqaluit, and Quebec City.

For example, in Montreal, urban growth is clearly evident as time progresses, particularly over the last decade.

In the municipal district of Woodlands County, there appears to be a gradual decline in vegetation over the years as greenery makes way for development.

Toronto’s fast-paced building is apparent in the city’s downtown core and in its surrounding areas as the years elapse.

Google Earth Timelapse users will be able to explore more than those featured Canadian cities, of course. They simply have to search for a specific location in the tool to watch how the area has changed since 1984.

The blog post said the Google Earth Timelapse has been used to aid news coverage for big events, such as the flooding in Texas in 2017. The technology has also been applied by researchers from the University of Ottawa who published an article in the journal Nature, which revealed a 6,000 per cent increase in landslides on a Canadian Arctic island since 1984.

“Scientists, documentarians and journalists have used this dataset to help us better understand the complex dynamics at work on our planet,” the post read.

“We’re committed to creating products like Timelapse with the planet in mind, and hope that making this data easily accessible will ground debates, encourage discovery, and inform the global community’s thinking about how we live on our planet.”