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 ...

Examine the set of graphs below for a given city. Read carefully the temperature and precipitation scales on the graphs. Review the biome information. Two biome choices are given for each set of ...

Update on 4/25: This Landsat image shows Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument in the winter. Congratulations to Mike and Charles for being the first readers to identify the location. Every ...

Update on 4/25: This Landsat image shows Camp Hale-Continental Divide National Monument in the winter. Congratulations to Mike and Charles for being the first readers to identify the location. Every ...

Just as the incoming and outgoing energy at the Earth’s surface must balance, the flow of energy into the atmosphere must be balanced by an equal flow of energy out of the atmosphere and back to space ...

The time it takes carbon to move through the fast carbon cycle is measured in a lifespan. The fast carbon cycle is largely the movement of carbon through life forms on Earth, or the biosphere. Between ...

Agencies and scientists across the globe continue to use Landsat data to monitor deforestation and to enforce environmental policies. For example, in 2003, the state of Mato Grosso, Brazil, piloted a ...

Lindsey Doermann joined Earth Observatory as a science writer in 2023. She is a former editor and writer for Conservation and Anthropocene magazines, covering environmental science and solutions.

Most materials published on the Earth Observatory, including images, are freely available for re-publication or re-use, including commercial purposes, except for where copyright is indicated. In those ...

Click on a numbered circle to zoom in on that area and view more stories. Click on a solid dot to view a preview image and a link to read the story. Explore your backyard or the other side of the ...

Have you ever wondered what it would be like to live in a different part of the world? What would the weather be like? What kinds of animals would you see? Which plants live there? By investigating ...

Sea surface temperatures have a large influence on climate and weather. For example, every 3 to 7 years a wide swath of the Pacific Ocean along the equator warms by 2 to 3 degrees Celsius. This ...