![[Earth Pictures]](http://pao.gsfc.nasa.gov/gsfc/earth/pictures/earthpic.gif)
Albemarle and Pamlico Sound still look very dark in this SeaWiFS pass. All of the organic matter washed in by this summer's hurricanes is absorbing most of the incoming solar radiation.
08 December 1999
El Niņo's Dramatic Impact on Ocean Biology, Carbon Dioxide Captured By a Unique Monitoring System
The 1997-98
El Niņo/La Niņa had an unprecedented roller-coaster effect on the oceanic food
chain across a vast swath of the Pacific, plunging chlorophyll levels to the
lowest ever recorded in December 1997 and spawning the largest bloom of microscopic
algae ever seen in the region the following summer. According to new results
published in the Dec. 10 issue of the journal Science, El Niņo also dramatically
reduced the amount of carbon dioxide normally released into the atmosphere by
the equatorial Pacific Ocean. 
The
Official Reproduction Guidelines for Use of NASA Images and Emblems
Credit line for all images: NASA/Goddard Space Flight Center The SeaWiFs Project
Science Visualization Studio
NOTE: All SeaWiFs images and data presented on this website are for research
and educational use only. All commercial use of SeaWiFs data must be coordinated
with ORBIMAGE.
Artist Concept of Terra Instruments Scanning the Earth
Terra Spacecraft/Atlas IIAS Rocket Ready For Launch Dec. 16 -- The launch of NASA's Terra spacecraft aboard a Lockheed Martin Atlas IIAS rocket is scheduled to occur on Thursday, Dec. 16 from Space Launch Complex 3 East at Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif. The launch window is 25 minutes in duration extending from 10:33 - 10:58 a.m. PST (1:33 - 1:58 p.m. EST). (Details)
Terra Spacecraft To Lead The Way (Details); Terra Website
07 December 1999
NASA Spacecraft Observes Lowest Ozone Ever in Northern Hemisphere
A NASA spacecraft has
observed the lowest value of ozone ever seen in the Northern Hemisphere since
spacecraft first began ozone measurements in 1978. The measurement was obtained
on Nov. 30, 1999 using the Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (TOMS) instrument
aboard NASA's Earth Probe (TOMS-EP) satellite. The measurement showed an extremely
low level of 165 Dobson Units (DU) over the North Sea between Scotland and Norway.
The blue color indicates lower than normal levels of ozone.
Scientists believe a combination of stratospheric and tropospheric weather systems
may be responsible for this extreme low ozone event. Scientists and others have
a keen interest in polar ozone depletion. While this particular record low value
results from a convergence of weather systems, severe depletions of ozone can
result from chemical processes. Chemically caused Arctic ozone losses have also
been observed, particularly in the Northern Hemisphere springs of 1996 and 1997.
TOMS ozone data and pictures are available on the Internet at: http://toms.gsfc.nasa.gov/
02 December 1999
NASA
Tests Design Concept For A New Pumpkin-Shaped Balloon For more information on NASA's Scientific Balloon Program visit NASA Wallops Flight Facility homepage or the Balloon Program website ; (Details)
08 November 1999
NASA scientists have developed a new digital tectonic activity map of the Earth that pinpoints the geologically and volcanically active features of the entire planet over the last one million years. (Details); Geodynamics Branch Homepage
05 November 1999
A NASA satellite
has shown that the area of ozone depletion over the Antarctic -- the well-known
ozone "hole" -- is a bit less in 1999 than it was last year.
TOMS ozone data and pictures are available at http://toms.gsfc.nasa.gov
or select Images or Antarctic Ozone for 7/99 to 10/99
QuickTime (160x120) (691KB). (Details)
05 October 1999
Smoke from forest fires has, for
the first time, been proven to inhibit rainfall, according to an extensive analysis
of data taken from NASA's Tropical Rainfall Measuring Mission (TRMM) spacecraft.
(Details) (JPEG
Image); Information and images from the TRMM mission are available at http://trmm.gsfc.nasa.gov/
05 October 1999
If you think traffic is getting worse on your commute, you're not alone. Hundreds of commercial airline flights carry thousands of passengers from the U.S. to Europe each day-traveling along what has become the busiest jet super highway in the world: the Atlantic corridor. Could all of that air traffic exhaust be a detriment to the atmosphere at 35,000 feet the way that auto exhaust pollutes the air we breathe?
In a study to be released in the Oct. 15 issue of the journal Geophysical Research Letters, NASA scientists found that the atmosphere over the Atlantic acts nothing like the Los Angeles basin when it comes to collecting ozone-the chemical responsible for smog. (Details)
Captions (click on thumbnail for larger image):
Specially designed chemical analyzer. The instrument is highly sensitive and able to analyze minute amounts of trace gases in the very clean atmosphere at 35 thousand feet. A probe protrudes from the plane taking in air for analyses of organic acids and nitric acid-a reaction product of nitrogen oxides that end up as acid rain. Other nitrogen oxides create ozone. In this part of the atmosphere, ozone acts as a heat-trapping greenhouse gas.
Contrails. The long wispy clouds that trail
jets can turn into cirrus clouds. Cirrus clouds add heat to the lower atmosphere.
Some scientists believe that cirrus clouds formed by aircraft may add to global
warming.
The
NASA DC-8 and the Deutschen Zentrum für Luft-und Raumfahrt (DLR), Germany's
national space agency, Falcon-20.
Anne
Thompson, Goddard Space Flight Center atmospheric scientist and mission scientist
for the Subsonic Assessment Ozone and Nitrogen Oxides Experiment (SONEX), part
of NASA's Atmospheric Affects of Aviation Experiment.
A laser water vapor detector measures water vapor in the atmosphere between
the window of the plane and wing.
Tandem testing.
The NASA DC-8 flies in gas-sampling formation with a Deutschen Zentrum für Luft-und
Raumfahrt (DLR), Germany's national space agency, Falcon-20. The DLR has been
testing the affects of aircraft on the atmosphere since the early 1990s.
Gas-collecting
inlet probes protrude from the DC-8
Hot
Stuff from the GOES Project
Hurricane Floyd in the Sargasso Sea
A Collection of Hurricane Floyd Images -- Data from NOAA GOES satellite. Images produced by Dennis Chesters, Laboratory for Atmospheres, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center.
New Landsat 7 Images of the Earth Now Available
This Landsat 7 browse image shows the area around New York City including Newark, NJ and Long Island.
After soaring to space last spring, NASA's latest Earth-imaging satellite has completed its checkout phase and is now "open for business." New images from the Landsat 7 spacecraft are now available for viewing and purchase by scientific researchers and the general public via the Internet from the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and NASA.
GSFC
Press Release 99-095
Landsat Image Site
07 September 1999
This image was captured by NASA's
SeaWiFS instrument onboard the SeaStar satellite on August 25 at 1:12 p.m. EDT.
The purpose of the Sea-viewing Wide Field-of-view Sensor (SeaWiFS) Project is
to provide data on the global oceans. SeaWifs and several other imaging devices
aboard NASA satellites are providing meteorologists with spectacular views of
the turbulent tropics. ( Full Story) (8/26/99)
SeaWiFS
30 August 1999 view of Dennis - click on image for larger view. For Hi-Res
view visit the SeaWiFS Homepage
August 28 GOES Quick-Time Movie of Hurricane Dennis (8.9MB)
Eclipse 99
On Wednesday, August 11, 1999, a
total eclipse of the Sun will be visible from within a narrow corridor that
traverses the Eastern Hemisphere. The path of the Moon's umbral shadow begins
in the Atlantic and crosses Central Europe, the Middle East, and India where
it ends at sunset in the Bay of Bengal. A partial eclipse will be seen within
the much broader path of the Moon's penumbral shadow, which includes Northeastern
North America, all of Europe, Northern Africa and the western half of Asia.
This event is the last total solar eclipse of the 20th century, and it will
benefit formal and informal education communities alike.
Eclipse 99 Website - fact-filled
website on this eclipse, a history of eclipses and future eclipses. Visit
this site for images and movies from the Aug. 11 Eclipse.
http://www.williams.edu/Astronomy/eclipse99/
- composite image from Eclipse and SOHO EIT.
11 August 1999
Landsat 7 Spacecraft to Join NASA's Earth Science Team
NASA will deploy the first major satellite in an unprecedented program to check the health of Planet Earth and understand the complex interactions that drive global change with the April 15 launch of the Landsat 7, the latest mission in the Landsat series, which has been documenting the Earth’s surface for more than a quarter century.
For more detail, check
these links:
General Press Release 99-034
Landsat-7
Press Kit
31 March 1999
Rapid Thinning of the Greenland Ice Sheet
Click on Image above to launch quick-time movie
This movie depicts the airborne laser altimeter collecting data. In 1993 and 1994, NASA researchers surveyed the Greenland ice sheet using an airborne laser altimeter. Ten flight lines flown in 1993 in southern Greenland were resurveyed in 1998. Scientists used computers to create detailed maps of changes in the ice.
The Many Faces of Laser
Altimetry
The same laser altimetry technology used to measure changes in the Greenland
glaciers was also used to measure the amount of ice in the frozen northern polar
cap of Mars and changes in the California coast due to severe El Nino-driven
storms in 1998.
A study of Greenland
indicates a rapid thinning of glaciers along the east coast of the southern
half of the island and suggests that the lower elevation portion of the ice
sheet may be particularly sensitive to changes in climate. The results of this
study are significant because they provide the first evidence of widespread
thinning of low-elevation parts of one of the great polar ice sheets. Areas
of ice thinning are shown in blue, areas where ice is thickening are shown in
orange.
NASA Researchers Document Shrinking Of Greenland's Glaciers (Details)
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/~akekesi/Greenland/QuickTimes/plane.mov -- movie courtesy of NASA/Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio
04 March 1999
New
Animation Depicts Changs in Antarctic Ice Sheet
For the first time, scientists at NASA have generated a computer model depicting
changes in the Antarctic ice sheet since the peak of the last ice age - nearly
20,000 years ago. The West Antarctic ice sheet has lost nearly 2/3 of it's mass
during this period - a volume sufficient to raise sea level 33 feet.
West Antarctica is the most prominent remaining ice-filled marine basin on Earth.
It is drained by fast-moving ice streams that extend far into the ice-sheet
interior. There has been much debate over the potential effect of West Antarctic's
volume being released into the ocean. Scientists hope to better understand the
history of Antarctic ice sheet so they might better predict how the ice sheet
may respond to climate changes in the future.
Dr. Bob Bindschadler Glaciologist, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center
Images and quicktimes can be downloaded after 8 a.m. Feb 3:
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/~akekesi/Antarctica/
Background information:
http://igloo.gsfc.nasa.gov/wais/
http://igloo.gsfc.nasa.gov/science/perspective.html
Images/Movies courtesy of NASA Goddard Space Flight Center Scientific Visualization Studio - "Providing
an understanding of science through visualization."
17 February 1999
Montserrat explodes at dawn (0.9 MByte QT movie)
The routine GOES-8 visible images are slightly contrast-enhanced to watch the ash cloud rise to 20,000 ft (6 km), and spread across the lesser Antilles
Courtesy of Dennis.Chesters@gsfc.nasa.gov
13 January 1999
Public Use of Remote Sensing Data Image Catalog; with previews
Space radar images of Earth from the Shuttle
Coastal Zone Color Scanner Interactive Region Selection
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