Earth: Our Living Planet (Updated)

An animated graphic showing the areas of focus for NASA's Earth System Observatory. NASA's Earth System Observatory is a set of Earth-focused missions designed to provide key information to guide efforts related to climate change, disaster mitigation, fighting forest fires, and improving real-time agricultural processes. With the Earth System Observatory, each satellite will be uniquely designed to complement the others, working in tandem to create a 3D, holistic view of Earth, from bedrock to atmosphere.The observatory follows recommendations from the 2017 Earth Science Decadal Survey by the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine, which lays out ambitious but critically necessary research and observation guidance.Areas of focus for the observatory include:Aerosols: Answering the critical question of how aerosols affect the global energy balance, a key source of uncertainty in predicting climate change.Cloud, Convection, and Precipitation: Tackling the largest sources of uncertainty in future projections of climate change, air quality forecasting, and prediction of severe weather.Mass Change: Providing drought assessment and forecasting, associated planning for water use for agriculture, as well as supporting natural hazard response.Surface Biology and Geology: Understanding climate changes that impact food and agriculture, habitation, and natural resources, by answering open questions about the fluxes of carbon, water, nutrients, and energy within and between ecosystems and the atmosphere, the ocean, and the Earth.Surface Deformation and Change: Quantifying models of sea-level and landscape change driven by climate change, hazard forecasts, and disaster impact assessments, including dynamics of earthquakes, volcanoes, landslides, glaciers, groundwater, and Earth’s interior. Related pages

Example composite of 5 years of Mollweide projected data of Earth's biosphere beginning March 2017 through February 2022. Mollweide projected data visualization of 5 years of Earth's biosphere starting March 2017 going through February 2022. Data for this visualization was collected from multiple satellites over the past 5 years. Platte Carree (flat map) projected data visualization showing 5 years of Earth's biosphere data. Date overlay for the biosphere data visualization. Colorbar for the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) land cover data. Shades of brown depict little to no vegetation (for example, the Sahara Desert), whereas deep green are large amounts of vegetation (for example, the South American Rainforest). Colorbar representing the Ocean's chlorophyll. Blues down to violet are areas with little to no chlorophyll. Green to yellow indicate high chlorophyll concentrations or other color dissolved organic materials. Colorbar representing the Ocean's chlorophyll using actual data values . Blues down to violet are areas with little to no chlorophyll. Green to yellow indicate high chlorophyll concentrations or other color dissolved organic materials. This newly updated data visualization of the Earth's Biosphere was unveiled at the 2022 United Nations Climate Change Conference (COP 27). By monitoring the color of reflected light via satellite, scientists can determine how successfully plant life is photosynthesizing. A measurement of photosynthesis is essentially a measurement of successful growth, and growth means successful use of ambient carbon. This data visualization represents five years' worth of data taken primarily by Suomi NPP/VIIRS satellite sensors, showing the abundance of life both on land and in the sea. In the ocean, dark blue represents warmer areas where there is little life due to lack of nutrients, where yellow and orange represent cooler nutrient-rich areas. The nutrient-rich areas include coastal regions where cold water rises from the sea floor bringing nutrients along and areas at the mouths of rivers where the rivers have brought nutrients into the ocean from the land. On land, green represents areas of abundant plant life, such as forests and grasslands, while tan and white represent areas where plant life is sparse or non-existent, such as the deserts in Africa and the Middle East and snow-cover and ice at the poles. Related pages

This Mollweide projected data visualization shows 20 years of Earth's biosphere starting in September 1997 going through September 2017. Data for this visualization was collected from multiple satellites over the past twenty years. 20 years of Mollweide-projected global biosphere data without colorbar and date annotations.This video is also available on our YouTube channel. Colorbar for the Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (NDVI) land cover data. Shades of brown depict little to no vegetation (for example, the Sahara Desert), whereas deep green are large amounts of vegetation (for example, the South American Rainforest). Colorbar representing the Ocean's chlorophyll. Blues down to violet are areas with little to no chlorophyll. Green to red indicate high chlorophyll concentrations or other color dissolved organic materials. Date overlay for the biosphere data visualizations. Plate Carree (flat map) projected data visualization showing 20 years of Earth's biosphere data. Hyperwall Material - Does not display By monitoring the color of reflected light via satellite, scientists can determine how successfully plant life is photosynthesizing. A measurement of photosynthesis is essentially a measurement of successful growth, and growth means successful use of ambient carbon. This data visualization represents twenty years' worth of data taken primarily by SeaStar/SeaWiFS, Aqua/MODIS, and Suomi NPP/VIIRS satellite sensors, showing the abundance of life both on land and in the sea. In the ocean, dark blue to violet represents warmer areas where there is little life due to lack of nutrients, and greens and reds represent cooler nutrient-rich areas. The nutrient-rich areas include coastal regions where cold water rises from the sea floor bringing nutrients along and areas at the mouths of rivers where the rivers have brought nutrients into the ocean from the land. On land, green represents areas of abundant plant life, such as forests and grasslands, while tan and white represent areas where plant life is sparse or non-existent, such as the deserts in Africa and the Middle East and snow-cover and ice at the poles. Related pages