1. Earth is truly our spaceship. The whole Earth as seen from 22,300 miles away, out in space. Welcome to Climate Kids, NASA's eyes on the Earth! Did you think NASA was all about astronauts, Space Shuttles, and missions to Mars? It is all of those and much more. It is also about the most important planet to us--planet Earth. What a great planet!

Earth is our spaceship. It carries us on a 583-million-mile cruise around the Sun every year. It even has its own "force field." Earth has a magnetic field that protects us from killer radiation and brutal solar wind. For its life-support system, Earth has all the air, water, and food we need. Just like astronauts on a long space voyage, we need to monitor all our "ship's" vital functions and keep our Earth "ship shape." Earth is a magnificent spaceship. Its magnetic field is an "invisible force field" protecting us from the Sun's stormy blasts. And Earth gives us everything else we need to live.

2. Weather is local and temporary. TV weather reporters need all the information they can get in order to predict the weather for just a few days. OK, we are on our own spaceship called Earth. Instead of air conditioning, it has weather. However, we cannot control weather by turning a thermostat up to make it warmer or down to make it cooler. The best we can do is try to predict the weather. Weather scientists, called meteorologists, try to foresee what's going to happen next.

It looks like this storm is getting ready to create a tornado. Is that big black cloud going to let loose over San Francisco, or wait until it gets to Sacramento? Will that new storm forming in the Atlantic Ocean turn into a hurricane? Conditions are just right for tornadoes. Will any form? And where might they touch the ground and cause trouble? Weather happens at a particular time and place. Rain, snow, wind, hurricanes, tornadoes--these are all weather events.

3. Climate is regional and long-term. Climate is the bigger picture. It is the big picture of temperatures, rainfall, wind and other conditions over a larger region and a longer time. For example, the weather was rainy in Phoenix, Arizona, last week. But this city usually gets only about 7 inches of rain each year. So the climate for Arizona is dry, Much of Southern California also has a dry, desert climate. Brazil has a tropical climate, because it's warm and rains there a lot. These two types of vegetation reflect their climates--one very wet and one very dry.

4. Whatever happens in Earth's climate system affects everything else. Earth's fate is in our hands. Even though Earth has no thermostat, it does have its own control system. The oceans, the land, the air, the plants and animals, and the energy from the Sun all affect each other to make everything work in harmony. Nothing changes in one place without changing something in another place. The overall effect gives us our global climate.

5. Earth has been getting warmer--and fast. This website is about Earth's global climate. Global climate is the average climate over the entire planet. And the reason scientists and folks like you are concerned is that Earth's global climate is changing. The planet is warming up fast--faster than at any time scientists know about from their studies of Earth's entire history.

6. Humans are causing this warming. How can we take better care of our planet? Scientists have discovered that humans are causing this warming. But how do they know that? What are we doing that could cause the whole planet to get warmer? And how could warming happen so fast? What will happen to people and other living things if the planet keeps getting warmer? And what can we do to slow down or stop the warming?

Let's find out . . . back to top >>

You might be wondering now about . . . Whatever happened to the dinosaurs? What is fossil fuel? or go to the Big Questions main page >>