NASA sponsored scientists have discovered by knowing the salt content of the ocean's surface, they may be able to improve the ability to predict El Niño events. Scientists, studying the western Pacific Ocean, find regional changes in the saltiness of surface ocean water correspond to changes in upper ocean heat content in the months preceding an El Niño event. Knowing the distribution of surface salinity may help predict events.

NASA and two Japanese government agencies are collaborating on a snowfall study over Wakasa Bay, Japan. Using NASA's Earth Observing System Aqua satellite, research aircraft and coastal radars to gather data, the joint effort is expanding scientific knowledge about where precipitation falls.

NASA's Solar Radiation and Climate Experiment (SORCE) successfully launched today aboard a Pegasus XL rocket over the Atlantic Ocean. Dropped from the wing of a L-1011 carrier aircraft at 3:14 p.m. EST, separation of the spacecraft from the rocket occurred 10 minutes and 46 seconds after launch at about 3:24 p.m. Initial contact with the satellite was made seven seconds after separation via a NASA communications satellite network.

Administrator Sean O'Keefe and Florida First Lady Columba Bush today outlined a unique NASA program designed to show learning in a whole new light by giving students and teachers across the country an out-of-this-world experience.

CloudSat, the most advanced radar designed to measure the properties of clouds, will provide the first global measurements of cloud thickness, height, water and ice content, and a wide range of precipitation data linked to cloud development.

A doctor gets a better view inside a patient by probing the body with CAT and MRI scanning equipment. Now, NASA meteorologists have done a kind of "full-body scan" of an evolving thunderstorm in the tropics, using advanced radar equipment to provide a remarkable picture of the storm's anatomy. The observations are expected to help double-check satellite rainfall measurements, improve computer models of storms, and make the skies safer for airplanes to navigate.

NASA-funded scientists have recently learned that cloud-to-ground lightning frequently strikes the ground in two or more places and that the chances of being struck are about 45 percent higher than what people commonly assume.

NASA's Ice, Cloud and Land Elevation satellite (ICESat) and Cosmic Hot Interstellar Spectrometer (CHIPS) satellite lifted off from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., at 4:45 p.m. PST aboard Boeing's Delta II rocket. Separation of the ICESat spacecraft occurred 64 minutes after launch at 5:49 p.m. PST. Initial contact with ICESat was made 75 minutes after launch at 6 p.m. PST as the spacecraft passed over the Svalbard Ground Station in Norway.

An international research team using data from NASA's SeaWinds instrument aboard the Quick Scatterometer spacecraft has detected the earliest yet recorded pre-summer melting event in a section of Antarctica's Larsen Ice Shelf.

While the cosmic debris from a nearby massive star explosion, called a supernova, could destroy the Earth's protective ozone layer and cause mass extinction, such an explosion would have to be much closer than previously thought, new calculations show.

The ferocity of the damaging Santa Ana winds that have raked Greater Los Angeles this week is illustrated in this ocean surface wind data from NASA's QuikScat spacecraft. Even though the winds lost much of their speed as they headed over the ocean, they were still well in excess of 30 knots (34 miles per hour). Red arrows denote the highest wind speeds.

NASA researchers, and more than 350 scientists from the United States, European Union, Canada, Iceland, Japan, Norway, Poland, Russia and Switzerland, are working together this winter to measure ozone and other atmospheric gases. The scientists will use aircraft, large and small balloons, ground-based instruments and satellites.