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Quiz: Our world, other worlds

Test your knowledge of how Earth is different from other planets, both within our solar system and beyond.

Test your knowledge of how Earth is different from other planets, both within our solar system and beyond.

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NASA Climate Change website

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This image shows a spinning formation of ice, clouds and low-lying fog off the eastern coast of Greenland. This image was acquired by the Landsat 7 satellite on May 14, 2001. This is a false-color composite image made using infrared, red and green wavelengths.
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Whirlpool
Whirlpool
Carbon dioxide is the main heat-trapping greenhouse gas that humans emit. How much do you know about it and its impact on global warming and climate change?
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Quiz: The air we breathe
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Video: Simulation of global clouds and aerosols from September 1, 2005, to December 31, 2005.
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Video: Simulated clouds and...
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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
A detailed look at Jupiter's and Earth's atmospheres and cores as we unlock mysteries of the solar system.
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Video: The NASA satellite fleet in 2017, from low Earth orbit to the DSCOVR satellite taking in the million-mile view.
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Quiz: Our home planet
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Quiz: Our home planet
Quiz: Our home planet
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
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Visualization of 30 named storms during the 2020 hurricane season
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Video: 2020 Hurricane Season
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Earth discovered - Climate 365 graphic
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This visualization shows the complex patterns of methane emissions produced globally from January 2018 to November 2018.
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Video: Methane Sources
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A super high-definition view of how carbon dioxide in the air moves around the world with the winds.
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Track Earth's vital signs and fly along with NASA's Earth-observing satellites.
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The relentless rise of carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere.
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This view of Earth from space is a fusion of science and art, drawing on data from multiple satellite missions and the talents of NASA scientists and graphic artists.
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Graphic: A simplified animation of the greenhouse effect.
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An animation shows several high impact events across the globe between August 2019 and January 2020, including the Australian bushfires.
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Video: NASA scientists release the first new global map of Earth at night since 2012.
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Explore

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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