Coronavirus-Induced CO2 Emission Reductions Are Not Yet Detectable in the Atmosphere
Effects of the pandemic will be detected in the atmosphere much later — To reach the Paris climate goals, decade-long measures are needed. Based on…
Earth News
CRISTAL: New Polar Ice and Snow Topography Mission
Monitoring the cryosphere is essential to fully assess, predict and adapt to climate variability and change. Given the importance of this fragile component of the…
Between Fire and Hurricane: US West Coast on Fire While Hurricane Sally Hits Gulf Shores
Over the past month, dozens of wildfires have burned vast swathes of land in California, Oregon, and Washington State, killing more than 30 people and…
Ancient Human Civilization May Have Been Controlled by Dust
When early humans began to travel out of Africa and spread into Eurasia over a hundred thousand years ago, a fertile region around the eastern…
“Out of the Blue” – Evidence That Sea Ice Triggered the Little Ice Age
Sea ice can act as an agent of climate change on a variety of timescales and spatial scales—it’s not just a passive responder to change….
High-Severity Wildfires on the Rise in Northern California’s Coastal Ranges Since 1984
From Berryessa to Klamath Mountains, High-Severity Burns Quadrupled During Warm Drought High-severity wildfires in northern coastal California have been increasing by about 10 percent per decade…
Caltech’s Seismic Innovation Uses Undersea Earthquakes to Shake Up Climate Science
Despite climate change being most obvious to people as unseasonably warm winter days or melting glaciers, as much as 95 percent of the extra heat…
Extraordinary Fires Char the Pantanal, a Vast Floodplain in South America
The Pantanal, a vast floodplain in South America, is among the largest wetlands in the world. The mosaic of grasslands, shrublands, forests, marshes, and lakes…
Earth From Space: Awe-Inspiring Vatnajökull, Iceland [Video]
The Copernicus Sentinel-2 mission takes us over the Vatnajökull ice cap, in southeast Iceland, in this summery image captured on July 6, 2019. Covering an…
A Meeting of Black Carbon Smoke and Tropical Storms
As large fires on the U.S. West Coast lofted vast plumes of smoke high into the atmosphere in September 2020, satellites and models tracked the…
NASA Satellite Data Analysis of Rainfall and Rainmaking Capability in Hurricane Sally
NASA satellites provided a look at the rainfall potential in Hurricane Sally before and after it made landfall in southern Alabama. NASA’s Aqua satellite and…
NASA Warns: Greenhouse Gas Emissions Could Add 15 Inches to 2100 Sea Level Rise
An international effort that brought together more than 60 ice, ocean and atmosphere scientists from three dozen international institutions has generated new estimates of how…
Experts Calculate Future Ice Loss and Sea-Level Increases From Greenland and Antarctica
Ice-sheet models are an essential tool in making predictions regarding the future of the Greenland and Antarctic Ice Sheets. Nevertheless, these models still have a…
NASA Takes Flight to Study California’s Wildfire Damage With Smoke-Penetrating Technology
While the agency’s satellites image the wildfires from space, scientists are flying over burn areas, using smoke-penetrating technology to better understand the damage. A NASA…
Discovery of a New Mass Extinction – Carnian Pluvial Episode – 233 Million Years Ago
It’s not often a new mass extinction is identified; after all, such events were so devastating they really stand out in the fossil record. In…
Spalte Glacier Has Disintegrated: A Segment of the Largest Arctic Ice Shelf Shattered Into a Flotilla of Small Icebergs
This series of four Copernicus Sentinel-2 images captured between June 29 and July 24, 2020, shows a segment of the largest ice shelf in the…
Catastrophic Flooding Possible: NASA Aqua Satellite Eyes Hurricane Sally and Finds Heavy Rain Potential
NASA’s Aqua satellite analyzed the cloud top temperatures and water vapor content in Hurricane Sally as it crawls toward landfall, and found the potential for…
NASA Monitors Atmospheric Carbon Monoxide From California Wildfires
The observations from Earth orbit show high-altitude concentrations of the gas that are more than 10 times typical amounts. NASA’s Atmospheric Infrared Sounder (AIRS), aboard…