Focus on Oceans

First are the ships by nation. Note that the four main exploring nations are listed, but not Portugal - the CLIWOC project was an EU consortium that did not include them* - the four languages entailed  significant lookup table work , which in fact doubled the number of points from just over ¼M to just under ½M: They were decimated** in order to post under 10K points online. These are also time-aware so step through them 10 years at a time from 1740 to 1855.

*: "My recollection was that the 1755 tsunami, quake and subsequent fires in Lisbon destroyed many of the archives. Those that survived were sold off to private collectors and whilst they may well exist are untraceable. Remember that CLIWOC ran some 20 years ago now and developments have been substantial since then. Old Portuguese records were not available when we worked on the project." (Dennis Wheeler, pers. comm., 2020)

**: 1/50 points using the  modulo function , thanks Simon Kettle then @ Exprodat, who also posted since the  World Port Index  used later here.

This next one shows wind force and direction on the same decimated ship spots as the previous map.

This also took some  significant work  to get wind force and direction data. They were decimated* in order to post only 48K points online. These are also time-aware so step through them 10 years at a time from 1750 to 1855.

This Spilhaus projection avoids having to pick either the central meridian or the amount of distortion as described in this  story map .

Having recently found the map described below, I re-post it here in Spilhaus projection, isn't it grand?

 World Maps--1790 and 1812--with sample explorer routes  [...] is a mash-up of two maps from the David Rumsey Historical Map Collection. A very small sample of his collection is now contained inside ArcGIS Online. Added to this map are two 18th century explorer routes... Added to the map are two explorer routes--the second voyage of British explorer James Cook and the ill-fated expedition of French explorer Jean-Francois de Laperouse. These data were obtained from the CLIWOC study of sailing ship logs covering 1750-1850.

Originally posted on defunct aizonline account, this was retrieved from jnbellin, who is thanked for preserving it.

Added are decimated CLIWOC wind force / direction and ship locations / nationality from a Spilhaus project [below], where Rumsey basemaps can't be reprojected. Note the difference in dot-density between complete Cook / de la Perouse [above] and decimated "Lite" layers [here]. Note also the back story on original  2004 web post  and  2014 blog post .

Next let's look at Koppen Geiger climate zones and hurricane traces. Capital cities are added to help orient and as a proxy for population density, but can be turned off for more clarity.

The climate zone classification is from Peel's original update published  here  with a set of descriptions  here . These are evidently terrestrial classifications based on work early last century.

Time-enabled observed and predicted climate shifts from 1901-2100 using Koppen-Geiger climate classification cannot be shown in this projection. It can be viewed  here , and slightly less distorted in Equal Earth is here.

Zoom in first and then turn on the hurricane traces from NOAA (press the » to get the layer list) , which are both marine and terrestrial. You will better see patterns in an area that interests you: Isn't it interesting to compare them to local climate zones?

The best use however of this projection, is to grasp global shipping patterns. Here is  Global Shipping and Fishing data in 2013  from National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) "Cumularive human impact on the ocean"... Zoom in a little to better see patterns in an area that might interest you!

Let's zoom in to the Mediterranean to see medieval Genoese and Venetian shipping from Georgeanne Hribar's " Medieval Shipping Routes ".

Let's zoom in to the English channel, to see  Distributive flow lines modelling traffic between East Anglia and Belgian/Dutch lowlands . See  here  how this modelled simple straight-line traffic as part of  another  story map on East Anglia mentioning the medieval wool trade (go to History > Transport to continent).

This map aggregates data by hex bins and posts them with firefly symbology to give an arresting view of piracy today. Johm Nelson's  Piracy aggregation  shows 40 years of nautical piracy incidents, provided by the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency aggregated into 40,000 square kilometer hexagonal zones. Let's see these in context in the maps below:

 World Port Index  gives the location, characteristics, known facilities, and available services of a ports, shipping facilities and oil terminals throughout the world.  Global shipping and fishing  depicts commercial shipping activities in 2013 from the study “Cumulative human impact on the ocean” by the National Centre for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS).

 Oil terminals  provides the location, characteristics, known facilities, and available services of ports that have an oil terminal.  Flanders Maritime Institute  provides 200 nautical miles exclusive economic zone polygons including joint and overlapping areas.

Let's look at the  major wind-driven currents of the world  derived from NOAA mainly. This view makes it a lot easier to grasp the currents on what is a relatively simple map but looks complicated on standard web:

 Estimate of Plastic Pollution in the World's Oceans (plastic size class 0.33 - 1.00 mm)  is a map of the field locations where count density was measured between 2007-2013. Hot colours show plastics tend to (but not always) appear at ocean 'quiet zones' away from major currents.

Capital cities are shown as a proxy for population density at s global scale, as they tend to be large population centres. And Exclusive Economic Zones are also a proxy for areas of exploitation in the ocean. While plastics pollution is far more complex issue, this map displays things clearly.

The 8 March, 2014 Malaysian Airline flight bound for Beijing and lost at sea at an unknown location started a frenzy of technical collaboration among many agencies. A backgrounder from Esri's Dawn Wright's  depiction  sets a context for pieces of the puzzle posted by Esri(UK)'s Ben Flanagan. World capitals also show some context. Check the legend and pan/zoom around to explore what is known.

This closeup shows  global shipping and fishing in 2013 , the year before: One sees how remote the possible crash site was, adding to the challenge of detection and recovery! Again it's a far more complex topic than a simple overlay, but this map centred on a possible area of interest is very clear.