Collects remotely-sensed data to improve our understanding of and contribute to improved predictive capability for climate, weather, and natural hazards. Research and satellite programs study atmospheric chemistry and ozone, ocean surface height and winds as well as biological productivity, precipitation and the global hydrological cycle, the global carbon cycle and land surface and vegetation and ecosystems, and solid earth geophysics. Data assimilation is used to provide accurate and consistent estimates of the global distribution of a broad range of environmental parameters and to initialize forecast models.