Since its creation in 1958, NASA has been studying the Earth and its changing environment by observing the atmosphere, oceans, land, ice, and snow, and their influence on climate and weather. We now realize that the key to gaining a better understanding of the global environment is exploring how the Earth's systems of air, land, water, and life interact with each other. This approach called Earth System Science blends together fields like meteorology, oceanography, biology, and atmospheric science.

In 1991, NASA launched a more comprehensive effort to study the Earth as an integrated environmental system. By using satellites and other tools to intensively study the Earth, we are expanding our understanding of how natural processes affect us, and how we might be affecting them. Such studies are yielding improved weather forecasts, tools for managing agriculture and forests, information for fishermen and local planners and, eventually, the ability to predict how the climate will change in the future.

NASA's current Earth Science Program has three main components: a series of Earth-observing satellites called the Earth Observing System (EOS), an advanced data system, and teams of scientists who are studying the data. Key areas of study include clouds; water and energy cycles; oceans; chemistry of the atmosphere; land surface changes; water and ecosystem processes; glaciers and polar ice sheets; and the solid Earth.

Phase I of EOS consisted of focused, free-flying satellites, Space Shuttle missions, and various airborne and ground-based studies. Phase II began in December 1999 with the launch of the first EOS satellite, Terra.

EOS is the first observing system to offer integrated measurements of the Earth's processes. It consists of a science component and a data system supporting a coordinated series of polar-orbiting and low-inclination satellites for long-term global observations of the land surface, biosphere, solid Earth, atmosphere, and oceans.

Just as the first weather and communications satellites fundamentally changed our way of thinking about those fields, so the elements of NASA's Earth Science Program are expanding our perspective of the global environment and climate. Working together with our partners around the world, we are improving our knowledge of the Earth and using that knowledge to the benefit of all humanity.

Resources

Interactive Satellite Observations