Warming Seas Are Undercutting Sverdrup Glacier in Northwest Greenland
Warming seas are accelerating the retreat of Greenland’s coastal glaciers. Sverdrup Glacier in northwest Greenland is pretty average. It is a textbook example of the…
NASA Earth Observatory News
Mysterious Hovering Clouds Spotted Over the Transantarctic Mountains
Smooth, stationary clouds are occasionally reported by the public as sightings of “unidentified flying objects.” But these clouds are not as mysterious as they might…
Potent Atmospheric Rivers Soak the Pacific Northwest
In mid-January 2021, the Pacific Northwest of North America was soaked by several episodes of heavy rainfall, leading to widespread flooding and landslides. In mid-January…
From Automobiles to Armstrong: Cleveland’s Urban Layout Has Evolved As Time and Technology Have Advanced
Cleveland, Ohio, and its expansive suburbs stretch inland from Lake Erie in this slightly oblique photograph taken by an astronaut on the International Space Station…
Changing Atlanta: Martin Luther King Jr. Came of Age in One of the Fastest Growing Cities in the United States
When Michael King Jr. was born on January 15, 1929, in a two-story house in Atlanta, the city had 715,000 residents. (His father changed his…
Earth’s Global Warming Trend Continues: 2020 Tied for Warmest Year on Record
Earth’s average temperature has risen more than 1.2°C (2°F) since the late 19th century. Earth’s global average surface temperature in 2020 tied with 2016 for…
Seawater Cutting Like a Knife Through Enormous Iceberg: A-68A Being Sliced to Pieces
Seawater has been cutting like a knife through A-68A, the enormous Antarctic iceberg drifting in the southern Atlantic Ocean. On January 11, 2021, the Visible…
Mount Fuji’s Missing Snow – Japan’s Iconic Mountain Looks Different
The lack of snow cover in December left Japan’s iconic mountain looking a little different than usual. Even as record snowfall has clobbered Japan’s western…
Massive Snowfall Blankets Spain – Heaviest Snowfall in the Region in 50 Years
Meteorologists declared it the largest snowfall in the region since 1971. Between January 7–9, 2021, a moist, low-pressure weather system over the ocean collided with…
Reshaping Coastal Louisiana: Barataria Bay Is Slowly Slipping Away
While there are efforts to reinforce its beaches and marshes, some of Barataria Bay is slowly slipping away. Sandwiched between the Mississippi River and Bayou…
Spied by Satellite: Phytoplankton Factory in the Argentine Sea
In spring and summer, conditions are often just right for populations of the plant-like organisms explode into enormous blooms. The Goldilocks zone typically refers to…
Socked in Stratovolcano: Astronaut on ISS Captures Incredible View of Uninhabited Atlasov Island
Rising above the clouds and the Sea of Okhotsk, the uninhabited Atlasov Island appears as a distinctive dark landform from the view of an astronaut…
Kilauea’s Lava Lake Returns – Hawaii’s Most Active Volcano Is Erupting Again
After two years of quiet, Kilauea, Hawaii’s youngest and most active volcano, is erupting again. In the early days of the volcano’s latest eruption, water…
“Smoking Mountain” – An Outburst From Popocatépetl Volcano in Mexico
Popocatépetl volcano—the name is Aztec for “smoking mountain” — is one of Mexico’s most active volcanoes. The glacier-clad stratovolcano has been erupting since January 2005,…
The Long, Troubling Decline of Arctic Sea Ice
Throughout 2020, the Arctic Ocean and surrounding seas endured several notable weather and climate events. In spring, a persistent heatwave over Siberia provoked the rapid…
Von Kármán’s Vortices: Key Mathematical Insight About Swirling, Asymmetrical Flow Patterns
On a clear day, the towering peaks on Fogo, Santa Antão, and São Nicolau stand out amid the flatter islands of Cabo Verde (Cape Verde)….
Bai Tu Long Bay, Vietnam and the Legend of the Mother Dragon
In traditional Vietnamese culture, the dragon is a powerful and sacred mythical creature. According to legend, Vietnam was constantly fighting off intruders from the north…
Shrinking Margins of Greenland: At Least 200 Coastal Glaciers Have Retreated Over the Past 20 Years
A recent study of Greenland’s ice sheet found that glaciers are retreating in nearly every sector of the island, while also undergoing other physical changes….