On a hot, sunny afternoon, walk outside and find a parking lot bordered by grass. Put one hand on the asphalt and the other on the grass. The same surfaces of asphalt, stone, brick, and cement that ...

Among the most serious Earth science and environmental policy issues confronting society are the potential changes in the Earth’s water cycle due to climate change. The science community now generally ...

Science suggests that to mitigate the human contribution to global warming, we should reduce carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions. Because some additional warming is inevitable—even if we ...

When scientists started to analyze the paleoclimate evidence in the Greenland and Antarctic ice cores, they found that the record also supported Milankovitch’s theory of when ice ages should occur.

Phytoplankton thrive along coastlines and continental shelves, along the equator in the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans, and in high-latitude areas. Winds play a strong role in the distribution of ...

All matter in the universe that has a temperature above absolute zero (the temperature at which all atomic or molecular motion stops) radiates energy across a range of wavelengths in the ...

Pine trees (genus Pinus) are evergreen, conifers (they produce cones that encase reproduction seeds) and can be found throughout the world, but they are native to northern temperate regions. There are ...

Though there are many possible combinations of wavelength bands, the Earth Observatory typically selects one of four combinations based on the event or feature we want to illustrate. For instance, ...

The water, or hydrologic, cycle describes the pilgrimage of water as water molecules make their way from the Earth’s surface to the atmosphere and back again, in some cases to below the surface. This ...

In 1967 Hansen went to work for NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, in New York City, where he continued his research on planetary problems. Around 1970, some scientists suspected Earth was ...

There are several ways space-based technologies can help us understand where species live and why they live there. One way is to directly observe species using satellite sensors with spatial ...

Joshua Stevens was the lead visualizer of NASA’s Earth Observatory from 2015 to 2023. He has researched and taught cartographic design, geovisual analytics, and remote sensing for more than a decade.