Anyone who has ever planned to spend hours outside on a hot, sunny day has probably heard the advice to wear light colors. Pale colors reflect much of the Sun’s light, keeping their wearers cool. The ...

Carbon flows between the atmosphere, land, and ocean in a cycle that encompasses nearly all life and sets the thermostat for Earth's climate. By burning fossil fuels, people are changing the carbon ...

Each summer, monsoon rains sweep across southwestern Asia, soaking India and Bangladesh. In nearby Pakistan, the rains are usually less intense, more intermittent, and centered in the northeast. The ...

A few decades ago, the idea of predicting a disease outbreak via satellite was science fiction. But today, researchers can use environmental data to predict when and where some diseases are likely to ...

Dirty snow usually melts faster than fresh snow because it absorbs more energy from the Sun, and that’s not just a problem in sooty, gritty cities. Except for some mountains and high plateaus, snow ...

The Earth Observatory shares images and stories about the environment, Earth systems, and climate that emerge from NASA research, satellite missions, and models.

Arctic sea ice occupies an ocean basin mostly enclosed by land. Because there is no landmass at the North Pole, sea ice extends all the way to the pole, making the ice subject to the most extreme ...

Current estimates of Amazon deforestation may capture less than half of the area degraded by logging and accidental fire. If the current trends continue, the entire Amazon frontier could be ...

In the black dome of night, the stars seem fixed in their patterns. They rotate through the sky over the seasons so unchangingly that most cultures have used the presence of one or another ...

Although it became clear about 40 years ago that aerosols could affect climate, the measurements needed to establish the magnitude of such effects—or even whether specific aerosol types warm or cool ...

The Earth Observatory shares images and stories about the environment, Earth systems, and climate that emerge from NASA research, satellite missions, and models.