The large-scale Biosphere-Atmosphere Experiment in Amazonia is an international research effort led by Brazil to investigate how the Amazon functions as a regional and global entity in atmospheric and biogeochemical cycles.

Due to drought and over irrigation, the once fertile Hamoun wetlands on the Iran-Afghan border have all but disappeared. Using remote sensing satellites developed by NASA, researchers with the United Nations Environmental Program are cataloguing the extent of the wetlands degradation and exploring…

Few books have altered the course of history—Silent Spring was one of them. The tidal wave of protest that followed its publication in 1962 forced the banning of the pesticide DDT and resulted in revolutionary changes in public perception about our air, land, and water. It helped launch the…

The aftermath of a wildfire can be as dangerous as the blaze itself. The charred landscape is prone to flooding and erosion, and natural resource experts usually have only one week to assess the damage and propose steps to mitigate disaster. Satellite mapping of burned areas can save crews time and…

Tune in to the evening weather report on any given day, and you?ll no doubt see satellite images of clouds. For years, experts have used cloud observations to predict the weather, from forecasting extreme weather events, such as tornadoes and hurricanes, to simply telling people whether they need…

With help from the ASTER instrument aboard the NASA's Terra satellite, scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey have embarked on an ambitious effort to create a worldwide map of well-exposed metal ore deposits.

A little bit of overcrowding can transform a population of solitary desert locusts into a marauding mob with a voracious appetite. By tracking rainfall-induced changes in vegetation in the desert locust's habitat, scientists can help predict when conditions are becoming ripe for the formation…

By dropping small sensors into hurricanes from above, scientists are acquiring data at high altitudes that will help them better unde rstand the structure and dynamics of hurricanes.

Forests and other vegetation in the U.S. consume about a quarter of the carbon dioxide gas the country produces each year. Over the past few decades the size of this “carbon sink” has been growing. NASA researchers now believe increased rain and snowfall are encouraging plant growth,…

Researchers have discovered that scatterometer data could provide important information on a variety of other surfaces, such as forests and ice, which became the basis for global climate change study applications.

Using plant fossils and ice cores, scientists have put together a history of the how the boreal forest has migrated since the last ice age. That history may help scientists trying to predict how the boreal forest of today might fare in a world much warmer than the one in which we now live.

When fish began dying in droves off the coast of Oman, local media reported it was due to contaminated ballast water from a U.S. tanker while authorities feared that a toxic algal bloom was to blame. Neither was true. Using data from NASA's Terra and SeaWinds missions, a team of scientists…

Data from recent NASA satellite missions offer scientists new views of Antarctica, and new opportunities to understand how its enormous ice sheet might respond to future climate change.

The Cloud-Aerosol Lidar and Infrared Pathfinder Satellite Observations (CALIPSO) satellite mission helps scientists answer significant questions about climatic processes by providing new information on clouds and aerosols.

ASTER satellite images have been used to find and track infestations of water hyacinths in the Rio Grande in Texas, as well as to monitor the success of plant eradication techniques.

Researchers have found that by reducing the amount of vegetation over large tracts of land, urbanization may affect the levels of greenhouse gases in our atmosphere.

Although red tides have been reported in Florida since 1530, scientists are still struggling to understand their cause, to predict their occurrence, and to find a way to lessen their impact. Now, a group of scientists in Florida is using remote sensing data and offshore monitoring to find and…

Astronaut photography of Earth from the first space flights in the 1960s formed the foundation for the remote sensing technologies that followed.

Aqua carries six state-of-the-art instruments to observe the Earth's oceans, atmosphere, land, ice and snow covers, and vegetation, providing high measurement accuracy, spatial detail, and temporal frequency. This comprehensive approach enables scientists to study interactions among the many…

Since the 1960s, NASA has developed polar-orbiting operational environmental satellites for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NOAA-M, the latest NOAA spacecraft, was launched on June 24, 2002.

Much like the iris in a human eye contracts to allow less light to pass through the pupil in a brightly lit environment, Lindzen suggests that the area covered by high cirrus clouds contracts to allow more heat to escape into outer space from a very warm environment.

Clouds play a crucial role in regulating the balance of energy received by and emitted from the Earth, but scientists aren?t sure exactly what this role is.

Our Earth is unique among the planets with an abundance of water and highly diversified life. The mission of NASA's Earth Science Enterprise (ESE) is to develop a scientific understanding of the Earth system and its response to natural and human-induced changes to enable improved prediction of the…

Scientists investigate the 2002 Larsen Ice Shelf breakup with the help of MODIS imagery.

Sufficient human pressure can transform tropical rainforest into savanna, and savanna into desert. Desertification now threatens more than a billion people worldwide, although its impacts are most severe in Africa.

An increase in plant growth can cool surface temperatures, give rise to more rain and cloud cover and lower the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. For many years biologists and Earth scientists have known of these interactions, but they have never been able to precisely measure and assess…

Elementary and secondary students and teachers in the Midwestern U.S. collect snow and cloud data at their schools to help scientists validate satellite data in a global change research study.

Ozone in the lower atmosphere (troposphere) is toxic to human beings and many species of plants, causing harm without visible symptoms. The Ozone We Breathe focuses chiefly on the ozone's effects on human respiratory health and and the productivity of agricultural crops.

Imagery from the ASTER satellite instrument helps scientists monitor volcanic domes.

Using GIS techniques and Chinese population and socioeconomic data, linguists trace the origin of Tai dialect in Southeast Asia.

Ozone in the lower atmosphere (troposphere) is toxic to human beings and to many other living things that breathe it. After combining satellite observations with data-rich models that simulate the atmosphere’s chemistry and dynamics, scientists are finding tropospheric ozone in some…

Using imagery from Landsat satellites, scientists have mapped the water clarity for over 10,000 of Minnesota’s lakes. The maps have allowed them to evaluate water quality patterns across the state.

The Stratospheric Aerosol and Gas Experiment (SAGE III) is a fourth-generation satellite instrument for observing the long-term health of the upper atmosphere, including the amounts of ozone, aerosols (suspended particles), and water vapor.

Only fifty years ago, weather forecasting was an art, derived from the inspired interpretation of data from a loose array of land-based observing stations, balloons, and aircraft. Since then it has evolved substantially, based on an array of satellite and other observations and sophisticated…

Satellite and ground truth data help scientists predict the risk of hantavirus pulmonary syndrome.

NASA satellite data from Terra and Landsat provide a unique perspective on the 2002 eruption of the Piton de la Fournaise volcano.

Scientists use ground-based measurements to learn how snow looks from space.