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Test your knowledge of ocean salinity and its relationship to climate change.
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Test your knowledge of ocea...
Quiz: Ocean salinity
​ A spring phytoplankton bloom off of the Alaskan coast.
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Churning in the Chukchi Sea
Churning in the Chukchi Sea
Visualization that captures sea surface temperature anomalies around the world from 1982 to 2017.
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Sea surface temperature ano...
Sea surface temperature anomaly timeline: 1982-2017
These cloud formations were seen over the western Aleutian Islands. Their color variations are probably due to differences in temperature and in the size of water droplets that make up the clouds. This image was acquired by the Landsat 7 satellite on June 16, 2000.
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Aleutian clouds
Aleutian clouds
Land. Water. Fire. Ice. These elements are basic ingredients that make up planet Earth. Take a moment to admire the magnificent spectacle of our stunning home planet from the perspective of space.
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Land. Water. Fire. Ice. The...
Video: Majestic Planet
Video: total sea level change between 1992 and 2014, based on data collected from the TOPEX/Poseidon, Jason-1 and Jason-2 satellites.
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Video: 22-year sea level rise
Video: 22-year sea level rise
NASA Earth Right Now promo
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NASA Earth Right Now promo
Video: NASA Earth Right Now promo
Arctic sea ice - Climate 365 graphic
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Arctic sea ice - Climate 36...
Graphic: Arctic sea ice loss
We know seas are rising and we know why. The urgent questions are by how much and how quickly.
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Infographic: Sea level rise
Infographic: Sea level rise
Graphic: A simplified animation of the greenhouse effect.
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The Greenhouse Effect
Graphic: The Greenhouse Effect
A series of rocky outcroppings are a prominent feature of this Sahara Desert landscape near the Terkezi Oasis in the country of Chad. This image was taken by the Landsat 7 satellite on October 22, 2000. It is a false-color composite image made using near infrared, green, and red wavelengths. The image has also been sharpened using the sensor's panchromatic band.
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Terkezi Oasis
Terkezi Oasis
Video: NASA scientists release the first new global map of Earth at night since 2012.
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Video: Lights of human acti...
Video: Lights of human activity shine in NASA's image of Earth at night
Rivers of ice - Climate365 graphic
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Rivers of ice - Climate365 ...
Graphic: Rivers of ice
Now you see it, now you don't - Climate 365 graphic
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Now you see it, now you don...
Graphic: Dramatic glacier melt
Perhaps the most impressive of cloud formations, cumulonimbus (from the Latin for “pile” and “rain cloud”) clouds form due to vigorous convection (rising and overturning) of warm, moist and unstable air. Surface air is warmed by the sun-heated ground surface and rises; if sufficient atmospheric moisture is present, water droplets will condense as the air mass encounters cooler air at higher altitudes. The air mass itself also expands and cools as it rises due to decreasing atmospheric pressure, a process known as adiabatic cooling. This type of convection is common in tropical latitudes year-round and during the summer season at higher latitudes. As water in the rising air mass condenses and changes from a gas to a liquid state, it releases energy to its surroundings, further heating the surrounding air and leading to more convection and rising of the cloud mass to higher altitudes. This leads to the characteristic vertical “towers” associated with cumulonimbus clouds, an excellent example of which is visible in this astronaut photograph. If enough moisture is present to condense and heat the cloud mass through several convective cycles, a tower can rise to altitudes of approximately 10 kilometers at high latitudes and to 20 kilometers in the tropics before encountering a region of the atmosphere known as the tropopause—the boundary between the troposphere and the stratosphere. The tropopause is characterized by a strong temperature inversion. Beyond the tropopause, the air no longer gets colder as altitude increases. The tropopause halts further upward motion of the cloud mass. The cloud tops flatten and spread into an anvil shape, as illustrated by this astronaut photograph. The photo was taken from a viewpoint that was at an angle from the vertical, rather than looking straight down towards the Earth’s surface. The image, taken while the International Space Station was located over western Africa near the Senegal-Mali border, shows a fully formed anvil cloud with numerous smaller cumulonimbus towers rising near it. The high energy levels of these storm systems typically make them hazardous due to associated heavy precipitation, lightning, high wind speeds and possible tornadoes.
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Cumulonimbus cloud over Africa
Cumulonimbus cloud over Africa
Curling snow drifts are magnified by the terrain around the 1,400 mile Dnieper River, flowing from Russia to the Black Sea.
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The wild, frozen Dnieper River
The wild, frozen Dnieper River
Along Greenland's western coast, a small field of glaciers surrounds Baffin Bay. This image was acquired by the Landsat 7 satellite on September 3, 2000. It is a false-color composite image made using near-infrared, red and blue wavelengths. 
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Baffin Bay, Greenland
Baffin Bay, Greenland
NASA's Landsat 8 satellite captured water mixing between Georgia's ick-colored Suwannee River and the deep blue Gulf of Mexico.
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Suwannee blackwater river m...
Suwannee blackwater river meets the sea
With autumn's arrival, chlorophyll begins to cede its dominance in the photosynthetic process, revealing yellow and orange tones on land, while in the ocean and lakes, phytoplankton pigments highlight different water masses and current systems.
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Changing colors across land...
Photosynthetic pigments by land and sea
City vs. desert - Climate365 graphic
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City vs. desert - Climate36...
Graphic: City vs. desert temperatures
This chart shows monthly CO2 levels in recent years.
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Graphic: Carbon Dioxide Con...
Graphic: Carbon Dioxide Concentration
Climate time machine interactive
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Climate time machine intera...
Interactive: Climate time machine
Test your knowledge of sea level rise and its effect on global populations.
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Test your knowledge of sea ...
Quiz: Sea level rise
Video: Winter temperatures are soaring in the Arctic for the fourth winter in a row.
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NASA studies an unusual Arc...
NASA studies an unusual Arctic warming event
NASA explores. From its earliest days of sounding rockets and balloon-borne instruments, to Apollo and Hubble and missions to Mars. This mission of exploration has also always focused on our own corner of the universe, Earth - the home frontier. Earth is still the only planet we've ever been to, as this video explains.
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NASA explores. From its ear...
Home Frontier

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Interactives, galleries and apps

Images of Change

Images of Change

Explore a stunning gallery of before-and-after images of Earth from land and space that reveal our home planet in a state of flux.
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Climate Mobile Apps

Climate Mobile Apps

Keep track of Earth's vital signs, see the planet in a state of flux and slow the pace of global warming with NASA's free mobile apps.
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Climate Time Machine

Climate Time Machine

Travel through Earth's recent climate history and see how increasing carbon dioxide, global temperature and sea ice have changed over time.
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Eyes on the Earth

Eyes on the Earth

Track Earth's vital signs from space and fly along with NASA's Earth-observing satellites in an interactive 3D visualization.
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Global Ice Viewer

Global Ice Viewer

Earth's ice cover is shrinking. See how climate change has affected glaciers, sea ice, and continental ice sheets.
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