Image of the Day: Satellite View of Flooded Fields Near Sendai, Japan

Caption by Michon Scott and Mike Carlowicz20 March 2011 A swath of agricultural fields lies between the Japanese city of Sendai and Sendai Bay, and the area was one of the hardest hit by the tsunami on March 11, 2011. The Advanced Land Imager (ALI) on NASA’s Earth Observing-1 (EO-1) satellite captured this natural-color image […]

Image of the Day: Satellite View of Rikuzentakata Coastline after Tsunami, 14 March 2011

Caption by Michon ScottMarch 18, 2011 On March 11, 2011, a magnitude 9.0 earthquake occurred off the northeast coast of Japan and triggered a tsunami that devastated coastal communities. One of the hardest hit was the city of Rikuzentakata. At the end of a narrow inlet, the city of roughly 8,000 households lost 75 percent […]

Image of the Day: Retreat of Sea Ice in McMurdo Sound, Antarctica, 2003-2011

Caption by Holli RiebeekMarch 10, 2011 Early in February 1902, Captain Robert Falcon Scott sailed into McMurdo Sound and docked his ship, the Discovery, in a small, sheltered bay at the tip of a rocky peninsula on Ross Island. Eager to begin a year exploring one of Earth’s last untouched places, Scott and his men […]

Melting ice sheets are largest contributor to sea level rise – Melt rates in Greenland and Antarctica are accelerating

ScienceDaily (Mar. 8, 2011) — The Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets are losing mass at an accelerating pace, according to a new NASA-funded satellite study. The findings of the study — the longest to date of changes in polar ice sheet mass — suggest these ice sheets are overtaking ice loss from Earth’s mountain glaciers […]

Warmer oceans taking toll on world’s coral reefs

By Renee Schoof, McClatchy Newspapers28 February 2011 WASHINGTON — Global warming took a toll on coral reefs in 2010, endangering one of the world’s key ecosystems that benefit people in countless ways. Coral reefs are habitat for almost 100,000 known marine species, including about 40 percent of all fish species. They feed millions of people, […]

Graph of the Day: Deforestation in Riau Province, Sumatra, 2001-2008

Temporal disaggregation of the moderate spatial resolution forest cover loss map for Riau province, Sumatra. Landsat band 5 is displayed in grayscale with dark tones representing forest cover. Colors mark the year of MODIS-detected forest cover loss. Image and caption courtesy of Broich 2011 Kalimantan and Sumatra lost 5.4 million hectares, or 9.2 percent, of […]

Image of the Day: Haze over China Viewed from Orbit, 20 February 2011

Caption by Holli RiebeekFebruary 22, 2011 Dense smog settled over the North China Plain on February 20, 2011. The featureless gray-brown haze is so thick that the ground is not visible in parts of this photo-like image taken at 11:35 a.m. by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite. At that time, […]

Graph of the Day: Carbon Emission from Arctic Permafrost Thaw, Projected to 2200

Contact: Katherine Leitzell, NSIDC Communication, leitzell@nsidc.org16 February 2011 One- to two-thirds of Earth’s permafrost will disappear by 2200, unleashing vast quantities of carbon into the atmosphere, says a study by researchers at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences (CIRES) National Snow and Ice Data Center (NSIDC). “The amount of carbon released is equivalent […]

Image of the Day: Cyclone Yasi Viewed from Orbit, 1 February 2011

Caption by Michon ScottFebruary 2, 2011 On February 1, 2011, Tropical Cyclone Yasi continued on its path toward Queensland, Australia. The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Terra satellite captured this natural-color image at 10:00 a.m. Queensland time (00:00 Universal Time) on February 1. The storm extends over the Solomon Islands and grazes Papua […]

Image of the Day: Receding Flood Waters around Rockhampton, Queensland Viewed from Orbit

9 January 2011   25 January 2011 Caption by Michon ScottJanuary 30, 2011 Heavy rains in Queensland, Australia, pushed the Fitzroy River over its banks at the beginning of 2011. The overflowing river submerged much of Rockhampton, not far from the Queensland coast. In late January, however, flood waters receded, leaving behind a mixture of […]

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