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Ukraine
Blasts Rock Airbase in Crimea
Satellite images are revealing the extent of damage caused by a series of explosions impacting a Russian airbase in occupied Crimea on Tuesday. Russian military authorities have dismissed the incident as an internal failure of fire safety measures, with no aircraft damaged. Satellite images provided by PlanetLabs, however, reveal extensive damage to the Saky military base, with multiple craters and seven to nine military aircraft damaged or destroyed. The Ukrainian government hasn't taken credit for the destruction, despite releasing a video on social media cautioning Russian citizens to avoid vacationing in Crimea, which has been occupied by Russian forces since 2014. If the Ukrainian military was responsible for the attack, it indicates what could be a major shift in Ukrainian strategy.- the strike's precision is much farther than Ukraine was believed to be capable. These blasts also bring the reality of the war closer to Russian civilians.
This map depicts the location of the Saky airbase in Novofedorivka, in Russian-occupied Crimea. A series of explosions there on Tuesday are believed to be caused by a strike by the Ukrainian military. Click on the map to learn more.
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Graphic Source: Al Jazeera
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Afghanistan
Pakistani Taliban Leader Killed
A senior Pakistani Taliban leader, Abdul Wali, also known as Omar Khalid Khrorasani, was killed by an explosive in Afghanistan on Sunday. Khorasani was a founding member of the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, or Pakistani Taliban, designated by the United States and the United Nations as a global terrorist organization. He was traveling through Barmal District in Afghanistan's southeastern border province of Paktika, near the Pakistan border, when a roadside bomb destroyed his vehicle. The leadership of the Pakistani Taliban had been operating out of Afghanistan since being driven out of Pakistan in 2015. No organization or government has claimed responsibility for his death.
This map depicts the location of Afghanistan's Barmal District, where a roadside bomb killed a senior leader of the Pakistani Taliban on Sunday. Click on the map to learn more.
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World
July Heatwaves
Globally, July 2022 ranked among the three hottest Julys on record. Temperatures were approximately .22°F (.4°C) above the 1991-2020 average across much of Europe. Southwestern and Western Europe were the most above-average regions due to an intense heatwave in mid-July, with multiple countries breaking several daily and all-time high temperature records. The lowest Antarctic Sea ice on record was also in July, at seven percent below average. However, regions from the Horn of Africa to southern India and central Asia to most of Australia experienced below-average temperatures, along with regions of far northern Europe stretching from Iceland down to to the Caspian Sea. Taking into account impacts to both human health and damaged infrastructure, the new heat extremes being seen are considered more deadly than tornadoes, hurricanes, and all other weather events combined.
This map depicts temperature anomalies across the world in July 2022. Click on the map to learn more.
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Q: Located at 77.5536° N latitude, in the Arctic Circle, what archipelago is home to the Global Seed Vault or the "Doomsday Vault"?
A: Svalbard and Jan Mayen
The Global Seed Vault in Svalbard safeguards duplicates of over 1.1 million seed varieties from almost every country in the world. Its purpose is to store a back-up foundation of a future food supply. Around the world, more than 1,700 genebanks hold onto collections of food crops, however these are vulnerable to natural disasters, wars, or a lack of funding. The loss of a crop variety is considered as irreversible as the extinction of an animal species. So why Svalbard? Thanks to its latitude in the Arctic Circle, it offers a remote location that is effectively inaccessible to potential saboteurs. It is also built 328 ft (100 m) into the mountain, and well above sea level, so the vault is protected from ocean flooding in the case of extreme sea-level rise. And, thanks to the permafrost, the vault maintains freezing temperatures naturally, a fail-safe method of conserving seeds.
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Q: One of the first applications of spatial analysis located cholera outbreaks in what European city?
Stay tuned for the answer to today's question in tomorrow's DailyGeo.
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