Shocking visualization shows Beijing quadrupling in size over a decade

Many urban areas in China have expanded significantly over the past few years. NASA recently released an animation which shows the dramatic growth of Beijing from 2000 to 2009.

The data from NASA's QuickScat satellite, analyzed as part of a new study, show that the city's physical area quadrupled in size over a decade.

Buildings are shown by the colors gray and black, with the lighter gray indicating the city's tallest and largest buildings in the commercial core.

Based on growth in physical infrastructure, scientists can better understand the consequences of urban expansion, beyond just the impact from increased pollution.

According to NASA, the "New infrastructure alone — the buildings and roads themselves, not including additional pollution created by the new city dwellers and their vehicles — created a ring of impacts around the older parts of Beijing. The impacts included increasing winter temperatures by about 5 to 7 degrees Fahrenheit...and reducing wind speed by about 2 to 7 mph...making the city air more stagnant."

The team involved with the study notes that the official areas of many cities are different than the actual footprint and such satellite data gathering techniques help scientists in evaluating what's happening on the ground.

Check out the slideshow below to see the fastest growing cities in the USA:

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