In 2007, more than 1,100 Landsat 7 images were used to create the first ever, high-resolution, true color map of Antarctica. The Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica (LIMA) is a virtually cloud-free, 3-D view of Antarctica's frozen landscape produced by NASA, working with the National Science Foundation, the U.S. Geological Survey and the British Antarctic Survey.Visualizers stitched together Landsat 7 satellite imagery acquired in 1999 and 2001 with a digital elevation model and field data measurements. ||

A water-rich polka dot pattern takes over the traditional rectangular patchwork of fields in this 40 year sequence of Landsat images showing the dry Texas panhandle near the town of Dalhart. In this series, vegetation appears red and the bare soil of fallow fields or sparsely vegetated grasslands appear white to green. The blue-gray X near the center of the images marks the town of Dalhart. ||

A combination of lightning, drought and human activity caused fires to scorch more than one-third of Yellowstone National Park in the summer of 1988. Within a year, burn scars cast a sharp outline on the 793,880 acres affected by fire, distinguishing wide sections of recovering forest, meadows, grasslands and wetlands from unburned areas of the park. After more than two decades, satellite instruments can still detect these scars from space.In the time-lapse video below, a series of false-color images collected by USGS-NASA Landsat satellites from 1987 to 2018 show the burning and gradual regeneration of Yellowstone's forests following the 1988 fire season. Watch as burn scars (dark red) quickly replace large expanses of healthy green vegetation (dark green) by 1989. Notice how the scars slowly fade over time as new vegetation begins to grow and heal the landscape.Landsat Project Scientist Jeff Masek has been studying the recovery of the forest after the 1988 Yellowstone fires. In the video below, he talks about how Landsat satellites detect the burn scars from space and distinguish them from healthy, un-burned forest and from new growth. ||

The Landsat Data Continuity Mission will continue the legacy of the 40-year Landsat program. This video examines two uses of Landsat data to monitor agriculture. Both wineries and timber companies rely on Landsat data to check whether their crops are getting enough (or too much) water and fertilizer.For complete transcript, click here. || G2012-071_Landsat_Users_Ag_MASTER_ipod_lg.01727_print.jpg (1024x576) [21.4 KB] || G2012-071_Landsat_Users_Ag_MASTER_ipod_lg_web.png (320x180) [19.5 KB] || G2012-071_Landsat_Users_Ag_MASTER_ipod_lg_thm.png (80x40) [2.4 KB] || G2012-071_Landsat_Users_Ag_MASTER_720x480.webmhd.webm (960x540) [53.6 MB] || G2012-071_Landsat_Users_Ag_MASTER_ipod_lg.m4v (640x360) [42.5 MB] || G2012-071_Landsat_Users_Ag_MASTER_ipod_sm.mp4 (320x240) [22.8 MB] || GSFC_20120927_Landsat_m11097_Users_Ag.en_US.srt [4.5 KB] || GSFC_20120927_Landsat_m11097_Users_Ag.en_US.vtt [4.3 KB] || G2012-071_Landsat_Users_Ag_MASTER_youtube_hq.mov (1280x720) [133.3 MB] || G2012-071_Landsat_Users_Ag_MASTER_appletv.m4v (960x540) [104.9 MB] || G2012-071_Landsat_Users_Ag_MASTER_1280x720.wmv (1280x720) [120.8 MB] || G2012-071_Landsat_Users_Ag_MASTER_prores.mov (1280x720) [3.5 GB] || G2012-071_Landsat_Users_Ag_MASTER.mov (640x360) [101.6 MB] || G2012-071_Landsat_Users_Ag_MASTER_720x480.wmv (720x480) [112.3 MB] || G2012-071_Landsat_Users_Ag_MASTER_youtube_hq.hwshow [65 bytes] ||

The cryosphere consists of those parts of the Earth's surface where water is found in solid form, including areas of snow, sea ice, glaciers, permafrost, ice sheets, and icebergs. In these regions, surface temperatures remain below freezing for a portion of each year. Since ice and snow exist relatively close to their melting point, they frequently change from solid to liquid and back again due to fluctuations in surface temperature. Although direct measurements of the cryosphere can be difficult to obtain due to the remote locations of many of these areas, using satellite observations scientists monitor changes in the global and regional climate by observing how regions of the Earth's cryosphere shrink and expand.This animation portrays fluctuations in the cryosphere through observations collected from a variety of satellite-based sensors. The animation begins in Antarctica, showing some unique features of the Antarctic landscape found nowhere else on earth. Ice shelves, ice streams, glaciers, and the formation of massive icebergs can be seen clearly in the flyover of the Landsat Image Mosaic of Antarctica. A time series shows the movement of iceberg B15A, an iceberg 295 kilometers in length which broke off of the Ross Ice Shelf in 2000. Moving farther along the coastline, a time series of the Larsen ice shelf shows the collapse of over 3,200 square kilometers ice since January 2002. As we depart from the Antarctic, we see the seasonal change of sea ice and how it nearly doubles the apparent area of the continent during the winter.From Antarctica, the animation travels over South America showing glacier locations on this mostly tropical continent. We then move further north to observe daily changes in snow cover over the North American continent. The clouds show winter storms moving across the United States and Canada, leaving trails of snow cover behind. In a close-up view of the western US, we compare the difference in land cover between two years: 2003 when the region received a normal amount of snow and 2002 when little snow was accumulated. The difference in the surrounding vegetation due to the lack of spring melt water from the mountain snow pack is evident.As the animation moves from the western US to the Arctic region, the areas affected by permafrost are visible. As time marches forward from March to September, the daily snow and sea ice recede and reveal the vast areas of permafrost surrounding the Arctic Ocean.The animation shows a one-year cycle of Arctic sea ice followed by the mean September minimum sea ice for each year from 1979 through 2008. The superimposed graph of the area of Arctic sea ice at this minimum clearly shows the dramatic decrease in Artic sea ice over the last few years.While moving from the Arctic to Greenland, the animation shows the constant motion of the Arctic polar ice using daily measures of sea ice activity. Sea ice flows from the Arctic into Baffin Bay as the seasonal ice expands southward. As we draw close to the Greenland coast, the animation shows the recent changes in the Jakobshavn glacier. Although Jakobshavn receded only slightly from 1964 to 2001, the animation shows significant recession from 2001 through 2009. As the animation pulls out from Jakobshavn, the effect of the increased flow rate of Greenland costal glaciers is shown by the thinning ice shelf regions near the Greenland coast.This animation shows a wealth of data collected from satellite observations of the cryosphere and the impact that recent cryospheric changes are making on our planet.For more information on the data sets used in this visualization, visit NASA's EOS DAAC website.Note: This animation is an update of the animation 'A Short Tour of the Cryosphere', which is itself an abridged version of the animation 'A Tour of the Cryosphere'. The popularity of the earlier animations and their continuing relevance prompted us to update the datasets in parts of the animation and to remake it in high definition. In certain cases, our experiences in using the earlier work have led us to tweak the presentation of some of the material to make it clearer. Our thanks to Dr. Robert Bindschadler for suggesting and supporting this remake. ||

This visualization shows a sequence of Landsat-based data in the Pacific Northwest. There is one data set for each year representing an aggregate of the approximate peak of the growing season (around August). The data was created using a sophisticated algorithm called LandTrendr. LandTrendr analyzes 'stacks' of Landsat scenes, looking for statistical trends in the data and filtering out noise. The algorithm evaluated data from more than 1,800 Landsat Thematic Mapper images, nearly 1 Terabyte of raw imagery, to define the life histories of each of more than 336 million pixels on the landscape. The resulting trends identify periods of stability and change that are displayed as colors.In these false color images, the colors represent types of land; for example, blue areas are forests; orange/yellow areas are agriculture; and, purple areas are urban. Each 'stack' is representative of a Landsat scene. There are 22 stacks stitched together to cover most of the U.S. Pacific Northwest. This processed data is used for science, natural resource management, and education.The visualization zooms into the Portland area showing different types of land such as agricultural, urban, and forests. We move south to a region that was evergreen forest for a number of years (blue), then was clear cut in 1999 (orange), then began to regrow (yellow). A graph shows the trajectories for a particular location in the clearcut as the years repeat. The dots represent the original data from Landsat; and, the line represents LandTrendr analysis. We move over to the Three Sisters region to show an area of pine forest that becomes infested with bark beetles in 2004. Next, we move to the southern foothills of Mount Hood where a budworm infestation is in progress; around 1991, the worms move on to another area and shrubs start to regrow. Next wemove to the east side of Mount Rainier National Park to see another budworm outbreak followed by shrub regrowth. Finally, we move to the west of Mount Rainier where we can see widespread clear cutting outside of the park, but no clear cutting inside the protected park land.Don't miss this related tour of the region. ||

Twelve years of global deforestation, wildfires, windstorms, insect infestations, and more are captured in a new set of forest disturbance maps created from billions of pixels acquired by the imager on the NASA-USGS Landsat 7 satellite. The maps are the first to measure forest loss and gain using a consistent method around the globe at high spatial resolution, allowing scientists to compare forest changes in different countries and to monitor annual deforestation. Since each pixel in a Landsat image represents a piece of land about the size of a baseball diamond, researchers can see enough detail to tell local, regional and global stories. Hansen and colleagues analyzed 143 billion pixels in 654,000 Landsat images to compile maps of forest loss and gain between 2000 and 2012. During that period, 888,000 square miles (2.3 million square kilometers) of forest was lost, and 308,900 square miles (0.8 million square kilometers) regrew. The researchers, including scientists from the University of Maryland, Google, the State University of New York, Woods Hole Research Center, the U.S. Geological Survey and South Dakota State University, published their work in the Nov. 15, 2013, issue of the journal Science.Key to the project was collaboration with team members from Google Earth Engine, who reproduced in the Google Cloud the models developed at the University of Maryland for processing and characterizing the Landsat data; Google Earth Engine contains a complete copy of the Landsat record. The computing required to generate these maps would have taken 15 years on a single desktop computer, but with cloud computing was performed in a few days. Since 1972, the Landsat program has played a critical role in monitoring, understanding and managing the resources needed to sustain human life such as food, water and forests. Landsat 8 launched Feb. 11, 2013, and is jointly managed by NASA and USGS to continue the 40-plus years of Earth observations. To view the forest cover maps in Google Earth Engine, visit: http://earthenginepartners.appspot.com/google.com/science-2013-global-forest ||

Still observing the Earth after 25 years—22 beyond its three-year primary mission lifetime—Landsat 5 collects valuable scientific data daily. Some attribute the satellite's longevity to over-engineering. Others say it's a long run of good luck. Whatever the reason, no one who attended the satellite's March 1984 launch could have expected it would still be working today.For complete transcript, click here. || Landsat5_turns_25_ipodLG.00202_print.jpg (1024x576) [73.2 KB] || Landsat5_turns_25_ipodLG_web.png (320x180) [149.4 KB] || Landsat5_turns_25_ipodLG_thm.png (80x40) [13.9 KB] || Landsat5_turns_25_appletv.webmhd.webm (960x540) [51.8 MB] || Landsat5_turns_25_appletv.m4v (960x540) [87.6 MB] || Landsat5_turns_25_YouTube.mov (1280x720) [56.6 MB] || Landsat5_turns_25_fullresH264.mov (1280x720) [119.3 MB] || Landsat5_turns_25_ipodLG.m4v (640x360) [42.3 MB] || Landsat5_turns_25_svsSM.mpg (512x288) [32.8 MB] || Landsat5_turns_25_ipodSM.m4v (320x180) [16.4 MB] || Landsat5_turns_25_NASAcast.mp4 (320x236) [30.9 MB] || GSFC_20090227_Landsat5turns25.wmv (346x260) [30.5 MB] ||

Agriculture consumes a great deal of water. As demand for water increases, the pressure's on to make sure every drop counts. ||

On August 29, 2005, Hurricane Katrina made landfall along the Gulf Coast. Five years later, NASA revisits the storm with a short video that shows Katrina as captured by satellites. Before and during the hurricane's landfall, NASA provided data gathered from a series of Earth observing satellites to help predict Katrina's path and intensity. In its aftermath, NASA satellites also helped identify areas hardest hit.For complete transcript, click here. || G2010-104_Hurricane_Katrina_appleTV.00427_print.jpg (1024x576) [144.4 KB] || G2010-104_Hurricane_Katrina_appleTV_web.png (320x180) [295.6 KB] || G2010-104_Hurricane_Katrina_appleTV_thm.png (80x40) [17.7 KB] || G2010-104_Hurricane_Katrina_appleTV.m4v (960x540) [144.9 MB] || G2010-104_Hurricane_Katrina.wmv (1280x720) [90.1 MB] || G2010-104_Hurricane_Katrina_youtube_hq.mov (1280x720) [203.1 MB] || G2010-104_Hurricane_Katrina_prores.mov (1280x720) [3.0 GB] || G2010-104_Hurricane_Katrina_appleTV.webmhd.webm (960x540) [43.9 MB] || G2010-104_Hurricane_Katrina_ipod_lg.m4v (640x360) [55.8 MB] || G2010-104_Hurricane_Katrina_portal.mov (640x360) [119.5 MB] || G2010-104_Hurricane_Katrina_nasacast.m4v (320x240) [25.5 MB] || G2010-104_Hurricane_Katrina_SVS.mpg (512x288) [27.6 MB] ||