NASA

How To Make a True-Color Landsat 8 Image

Since its launch in February 2013, Landsat 8 has collected about 400 scenes of the Earth’s surface per day. Each of these scenes covers an area of about 185 by 185 kilometers (115 by 115 miles)—34,200 ...
NASA

Desert Sample Location Map

The Earth Observatory shares images and stories about the environment, Earth systems, and climate that emerge from NASA research, satellite missions, and models.
NASA

Earth Matters

The Antarctic ozone hole in 2016 was not exactly remarkable. But each year, we publish an annual update because, when strung together over time, the series shows the unparalleled success of the ...
NASA

Notes from the Field

One of the key pieces of the puzzle we seek to solve in SPURS relates to turbulence. We really need a deeper knowledge of how turbulence near the ocean surface mixes the surface waters (See prior blog ...
NASA

When Canada Stands In for Antarctica

Hello SEAT blog followers. I am Summer Ruper, and I would like to share with you a little bit of the ice coring adventure that begins well before the field team heads to Antarctica. Before we start ...
NASA

Keeping track of changing landscapes

When you look at a parcel of Earth’s surface at a moment in time, it can be hard to grasp the story behind the image. It’s a snapshot, a fleeting glimpse. Does it always look like that? Am I seeing ...
NASA

Of Mosquitoes and Models: Tracking Disease by Satellite

In January 2016 in Kenya, the conditions were just right for an outbreak of Rift Valley fever. A strong El Niño on the other side of the world had brought higher temperatures and a wetter-than-normal ...
NASA

Methane Matters

For a chemical compound that shows up nearly everywhere on the planet, methane still surprises us. It is one of the most potent greenhouse gases, and yet the reasons for why and where it shows up are ...
NASA

Earth’s Changing Ice, One Flight at a Time

Because understanding of some important effects driving sea level rise is too limited, this report does not assess the likelihood, nor provide a best estimate or an upper bound for sea level rise. The ...
NASA

Sea Level Rise Hits Home at NASA

For the past two centuries, two trends have been steady and clear around the United States. Sea level has been rising, and more people have been moving closer to the coast. As the ocean has warmed, ...
NASA

Big Data Helps Scientists Dig Deeper

When Rebecca Moore received the formal notice in 2006 about a proposed forest thinning initiative, she nearly tossed it out. The letter included an unintelligible black-and-white topographic map of ...
NASA

How to Interpret a Satellite Image:

Satellite images are like maps: they are full of useful and interesting information, provided you have a key. They can show us how much a city has changed, how well our crops are growing, where a fire ...