Data Sources — OpenButterfly

🌫️

Atmosphere & Greenhouse Gases

NOAA Global Monitoring Laboratory

Mauna Loa CO₂ Data

FREE

The original Keeling Curve. Monthly mean CO₂ in ppm from 1958 to present. The most important climate dataset in existence. Available as CSV or JSON. No API key needed.

📅 Monthly + Daily 🔑 No auth needed 📊 CSV / JSON / TXT

https://gml.noaa.gov/webdata/ccgg/trends/co2/co2_mm_mlo.txt

Docs → NOAA GML

Copernicus Climate Change Service

C3S Climate Data Store

FREE

ERA5 reanalysis data, global temperature anomalies, extreme event indices, sea level pressure, and more. One of the most comprehensive climate datasets available.

📅 Hourly / Daily / Monthly 🔑 Free registration 📊 NetCDF / GRIB

import cdsapi; c = cdsapi.Client(); c.retrieve('reanalysis-era5-...', {...})

Docs → Copernicus CDS

IQAir

Air Quality API

FREEMIUM

Real-time AQI data (PM2.5, PM10, O₃, NO₂, SO₂, CO) for 10,000+ cities. Free tier: 10,000 calls/month. Perfect for the air quality dashboard section.

📅 Real-time 🔑 Free API key 📊 JSON REST

GET https://api.airvisual.com/v2/city?city=Delhi&state=Delhi&country=India&key=API_KEY

Docs → IQAir API

OpenAQ

Open Air Quality Platform

FREE

Aggregates real-time and historical air quality data from 15,000+ monitoring stations globally. Fully open API, no auth required for basic use. Powers many major climate dashboards.

📅 Real-time + Historical 🔑 Optional API key 📊 JSON REST

GET https://api.openaq.org/v3/locations?coordinates=28.6,77.2&radius=25000

Docs → OpenAQ

🌊

Oceans & Cryosphere

NASA / CNES

Sea Level Change Portal

FREE

Satellite altimetry data (TOPEX/Poseidon → Jason-3 → Sentinel-6). Global mean sea level with 60-day resolution. Used by the IPCC. Download CSV directly.

📅 60-day cycles 🔑 No auth 📊 CSV / NetCDF

https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/sea-level/ → CSV download

Docs → NASA Sea Level

NSIDC

Sea Ice Index

FREE

Arctic and Antarctic sea ice extent, area, and concentration. Daily and monthly values from 1979. Published by the National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC), University of Colorado.

📅 Daily + Monthly 🔑 No auth 📊 CSV / GeoTIFF

https://nsidc.org/data/g02135/versions/3 → Direct FTP + HTTP download

Docs → NSIDC

Copernicus Marine Service

CMEMS Ocean API

FREE

Sea surface temperature, salinity, chlorophyll, ocean currents, and more. Global coverage with analysis and forecast products. Python toolbox (motuclient / copernicusmarine).

📅 Daily + Reanalysis 🔑 Free registration 📊 NetCDF / Zarr

import copernicusmarine; ds = copernicusmarine.open_dataset(dataset_id="...")

Docs → CMEMS

NOAA Coral Reef Watch

Bleaching Alert System

FREE

Satellite-derived SST and Degree Heating Weeks (DHW) for coral bleaching risk. WMS/WCS endpoints allow direct map tile integration. Updated twice weekly.

📅 Twice weekly 🔑 No auth 📊 NetCDF / WMS / JSON

https://coralreefwatch.noaa.gov/product/5km/data.php → NetCDF global

Docs → NOAA CRW

🌲

Land, Forest & Fire

NASA Earthdata

FIRMS — Fire Information for Resource Management

FREE

Real-time active fire detections from MODIS and VIIRS satellites. Data available in CSV, JSON, and GeoJSON. You can query a bounding box and get fire points updated every 3 hours.

📅 3-hour updates 🔑 Free API key (MAP_KEY) 📊 CSV / JSON / GeoJSON

GET https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/country/csv/{MAP_KEY}/VIIRS_SNPP_NRT/BRA/1

Docs → NASA FIRMS API

World Resources Institute

Global Forest Watch API

FREE

Tree cover loss, GLAD deforestation alerts, fire alerts, and land use data. REST API with GeoJSON support. Powers forest monitoring for 150+ countries. Requires free registration.

📅 Weekly alerts 🔑 Free API key 📊 JSON / GeoJSON / CSV

POST https://data-api.globalforestwatch.org/dataset/gfw_integrated_alerts/latest/query

Docs → GFW API

Google / Hansen Lab (UMD)

Hansen Global Forest Change

FREE

Annual tree cover gain/loss at 30-meter resolution via Google Earth Engine. The definitive global forest dataset. Access via GEE Python/JS API or pre-processed downloads.

📅 Annual 🔑 Google Earth Engine account 📊 GeoTIFF / Earth Engine

ee.Image("UMD/hansen/global_forest_change_2023_v1_11")

Docs → GLAD / GEE

INPE — Brazil National Space Research Institute

PRODES Amazon Monitor

FREE

Official Brazilian government Amazon deforestation monitoring. Annual and near-real-time (DETER) alerts. Shapefile, GeoPackage, and API access. The gold standard for Amazon data.

📅 Annual + Near-real-time 🔑 No auth 📊 GeoPackage / Shapefile

https://terrabrasilis.dpi.inpe.br/en/home-page/ → API & downloads

Docs → TerraBrasilis

🌡️

Climate & Temperature

NASA GISS

GISTEMP Global Temperature Analysis

FREE

NASA's global surface temperature anomaly dataset from 1880 to present. Monthly updates. The most-cited global temperature record. Direct CSV download, no auth needed.

📅 Monthly 🔑 No auth 📊 CSV / TXT

https://data.giss.nasa.gov/gistemp/tabledata_v4/GLB.Ts+dSST.csv

Docs → NASA GISTEMP

Open-Meteo

Open-Meteo Weather & Climate API

FREE

Free, open-source weather API with hourly data, historical reanalysis (ERA5), and climate projections (CMIP6). No API key required for personal/open-source projects. Perfect for this site.

📅 Hourly / Historical 🔑 No auth needed 📊 JSON REST

GET https://api.open-meteo.com/v1/forecast?latitude=52.52&longitude=13.41&hourly=temperature_2m

Docs → Open-Meteo

GBIF

Global Biodiversity Information Facility

FREE

2.4 billion occurrence records of species globally. Track species distribution, population trends, and range shifts driven by climate change. Full REST API, no auth for read access.

📅 Continuously updated 🔑 No auth for reads 📊 JSON REST

GET https://api.gbif.org/v1/occurrence/search?taxonKey=2440447&limit=10

Docs → GBIF API

IEA / Our World in Data

CO₂ & GHG Emissions Data

FREE

Our World in Data's CO₂ and greenhouse gas dataset (based on Global Carbon Project). Per-country emissions, sector breakdowns, and cumulative historical data in CSV. Widely used by researchers.

📅 Annual 🔑 No auth 📊 CSV

https://github.com/owid/co2-data/raw/master/owid-co2-data.csv

GitHub → OWID CO₂ Data

☁️

Deployment: Cloudflare Pages + Workers

How to Deploy OpenButterfly on Cloudflare

Push to GitHub
Create a GitHub repo and push this entire project folder. Cloudflare Pages connects directly to GitHub for CI/CD. Every push to main auto-deploys.
Connect to Cloudflare Pages
Go to Cloudflare dashboard → Pages → Create Application → Connect to Git. Select your repo. Build command: none (static site). Output directory: / (root).
Add Custom Domain
In Pages settings → Custom Domains → Add openbutterfly.com. Since your domain is already on Cloudflare, DNS is configured automatically. HTTPS is free and automatic.
Create Cloudflare Workers for API Proxying
Use Workers to proxy calls to NOAA, NASA, etc. — this keeps your API keys secret server-side, adds caching, and avoids CORS issues. Workers are free up to 100,000 req/day.
Schedule Data Refreshes with Cron Triggers
Use wrangler.toml with crons = ["*/15 * * * *"] to fetch and cache data every 15 minutes into Cloudflare KV storage. Your frontend then reads from KV instead of hitting the origin API each time.

Sample: Cloudflare Worker — NOAA CO₂ Proxy with KV Cache

// wrangler.toml: kv_namespaces = [{binding="ENV_DATA", id="..."}]
// crons = ["*/15 * * * *"]

export default {
  // Scheduled fetch — runs every 15 min
  async scheduled(event, env) {
    const res = await fetch(
      'https://gml.noaa.gov/webdata/ccgg/trends/co2/co2_weekly_mlo.txt'
    );
    const text = await res.text();
    const lines = text.split('\n').filter(l => !l.startsWith('#'));
    const latest = lines[lines.length - 2].trim().split(/\s+/);
    const ppm = latest[4]; // CO2 in ppm column
    
    await env.ENV_DATA.put('co2_latest', JSON.stringify({
      ppm: parseFloat(ppm),
      date: latest[0] + '-' + latest[1],
      updatedAt: new Date().toISOString()
    }), { expirationTtl: 3600 });
  },

  // Serve cached data to frontend
  async fetch(request, env) {
    const data = await env.ENV_DATA.get('co2_latest', { type: 'json' });
    return new Response(JSON.stringify(data), {
      headers: {
        'Content-Type': 'application/json',
        'Access-Control-Allow-Origin': '*',
        'Cache-Control': 'public, max-age=900'
      }
    });
  }
};

Sample: Fetching NASA FIRMS Fire Data in the Browser

// Replace YOUR_MAP_KEY with your free NASA FIRMS API key
// Get it at: https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/area/

async function fetchActiveFires() {
  const MAP_KEY = 'YOUR_MAP_KEY';
  const url = `https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/api/area/csv/
    ${MAP_KEY}/VIIRS_SNPP_NRT/-180,-90,180,90/1`; // 1 day, global
  
  const res = await fetch(url);
  const csv = await res.text();
  
  // Parse CSV to GeoJSON
  const rows = csv.split('\n').slice(1); // skip header
  return rows.filter(Boolean).map(row => {
    const [lat, lon, bright, scan, track, date, time, sat, instrument, confidence] = row.split(',');
    return { lat: +lat, lon: +lon, confidence, date, bright: +bright };
  });
}

// Add to Leaflet map
fetchActiveFires().then(fires => {
  fires.forEach(f => {
    L.circleMarker([f.lat, f.lon], {
      radius: 4, color: '#ef4444', fillOpacity: 0.8
    }).addTo(map).bindPopup(`Fire ${f.date} — Brightness: ${f.bright}K`);
  });
});