Phytoplankton cause mass mortality in other ways. In the aftermath of a massive bloom, dead phytoplankton sink to the ocean or lake floor. The bacteria that decompose the phytoplankton deplete the ...

Even after the monsoon rains subsided, waters retreated much more slowly than they had advanced. Months after the rains stopped, crops, homes, businesses, and entire towns were still submerged. In ...

Such is the world we would have inherited if 193 nations had not agreed to ban ozone-depleting chemicals, according to atmospheric chemists from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, the Johns Hopkins ...

Kathryn Hansen Kathryn Hansen is the managing editor for NASA Earth Observatory. She has been writing stories, producing videos, and editing content for the group since 2014. Prior to joining Earth ...

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 ...

Directions Examine the set of graphs below for a given city. Read carefully the temperature and precipitation scales on the graphs. Review the biome information. Two biome choices are given for each ...

Image Mapping the Tiny Plankton That Feed Giant Right Whales Researchers used NASA satellite data to detect swarms of red-tinged copepods, a key food source for the endangered marine mammals, in the ...

Michael Carlowicz Michael Carlowicz was managing editor of NASA’s Earth Observatory from 2010 to 2022. He has written about Earth science and geophysics since 1991 for several NASA divisions, the ...

The most valuable fossils found in sediment cores are from tiny animals with a calcium carbonate shell, called foraminifera. One species of foraminifera lives in the icy waters of the Arctic above ...

The animation at the top of this page shows a wide view of Pine Island Glacier (PIG) and the long-term retreat of its ice front. Images were acquired by the Moderate Resolution Imaging ...

× This page contains archived content and is no longer being updated. At the time of publication, it represented the best available science. Before widespread human settlement began to encroach on the ...

Image Antarctic Iceberg Loses Its Edge The largest iceberg currently at sea is parked off the coast of South Georgia Island and showing signs of fragility. Published May 6, 2025 Image of the Day Land ...