Like detectives reconstructing a crime scene, paleoclimatologists scour the Earth for clues to understand the climates of the past and to learn how and why climate changes.

Both tree rings and similar rings in ocean coral can tell scientists about rainfall and temperatures during a single growing season.

Scientists' efforts to explain the paleoclimate evidence-not just the when and where of climate change, but the how and why-have produced some of the most significant theories of how the Earth's climate system works.

Like detectives reconstructing a crime scene, paleoclimatologists scour the Earth for clues to understand the climates of the past and to learn how and why climate changes.

Satellite observations help landowners and land managers monitor the health of their land by providing a larger perspective.

Attempts of Renaissance astronomers to explain the puzzling path of planets across the night sky led to modern science’s understanding of gravity and motion.

Polar ice consists of sea ice, ice sheets, and glaciers. Extending over vast areas of the polar regions, this ice provides some early clues about climate change.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture, NASA, and NOAA are among key agencies contributing to precision farming revolution. The goal is to improve farmers' profits and harvest yields while reducing the negative impacts of farming on the environment that come from over-application of chemicals.

With help from the ASTER instrument aboard the NASA's Terra satellite, scientists at the U.S. Geological Survey have embarked on an ambitious effort to create a worldwide map of well-exposed metal ore deposits.

Using modern global databases, hundreds of research reports, satellite photos, and computerized drafting methods, a group of researchers at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center has pieced together what’s considered a series of objective and comprehensive maps (what’s known as a Geological Information System, or GIS) of the planet’s tectonic activity.

Forests and other vegetation in the U.S. consume about a quarter of the carbon dioxide gas the country produces each year. Over the past few decades the size of this “carbon sink” has been growing. NASA researchers now believe increased rain and snowfall are encouraging plant growth, which in turn are sequestering carbon dioxide.

International teamwork yields a high-resolution map of Antarctica.

Tracking urbanization, the conversion of rural landscape to urban habitat, has always been difficult due to the speed at which it progresses. Recently, NASA scientists came across a solution. Using satellite images of city lights at night, they constructed a map of urbanized areas and integrated this map with a soil map prepared by the United Nations. These maps indicate…

Elevation data collected from the space shuttle help map Earth's rivers in remote regions.

Ambiguous seismic data and a spotty GPS network initially frustrated geologists mapping the length of the tsunami-generating earthquake that struck Indonesia in 2004. Caltech grad student Aron Meltzner decided to improvise: he mapped the rupture using satellite images of coral reefs and coastlines that rose or sank during the quake.

Remote sensing data help scientists understand large river systems and basin hydrology.