As world quarantines, webcams and satellites quietly watch

UPDATE April 2, 2020: I didn't think it was possible, but as the United States moves into another month of quarantine, 90% of the population of our country (and 50% of the world's) is under stay-at-home orders... and the webcams are even emptier.

Below is a video tour of 45 Earthcams in 31 cities worldwide that I recorded today (most at rush hour). It's next to impossible to find a car or a person in the footage. I can't believe our world has changed this much.

ORIGINAL BLOG: As I write this, it's rush hour in New York City on Monday, March 23, 2020. Times Square is completely empty, save one police van.

Earthcam view of Times Square, New York City, Monday, March 23, 2020.

Outdoor webcams (such as those at Earthcam) are robotically, with no knowledge of the virus and no political bias, recording the lack of humans worldwide, something heretofore unseen, as the Earth quarantines from the coronavirus. Here are a few examples I've captured over the last week. This footage was recorded in Times Square last Friday at rush hour and again this Monday rush hour (see also widescreen higher-res version):

This next one was recorded around 9 a.m. ET on Friday, March 20, and shows the lack of people and vehicles in Prague, London, Dublin, New Orleans, Los Angeles and Miami and Fort Lauderdale, Florida:

The same day, I also recorded a slideshow of traffic cameras across North America. These were mostly captured around 9-10 a.m. ET, and most are stills. Shown: Altoona, Pennsylvania, Philadelphia, New York City, Boston, Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Atlanta, Miami, Orlando, Detroit, Dallas, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, Los Angeles, San Diego and, from Canada, Montreal and Toronto.

You don't need a webcam to see the effects of coronavirus quarantine... there are plenty of other ways to measure our isolation. These are scenes not unlike those in apocalyptic movies... and the webcams will continue to watch us as we work through this maze of confusion.

You know what else is watching? Satellites. Not only in the classic sense where they are taking pictures of the planet every day, but also in that they are able to monitor the atmosphere, and you can see the lack of humans' influence there as well, especially in China and Italy.

The image below shows worldwide nitrogen-dioxide pollution since December. You can see the reduction in both China and Italy, along with some other areas.

NO2 concentration Dec. 1, 2019 to March 17, 2020 (GIF)

There are quadcopters too, of course, as long as there are still humans to fly them. I'm pretty sure it's illegal to fly a drone in New York City, but with everybody tucked inside, this guy did it: