NASA’s Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 has compiled its first year of data and started quantifying the cycles of emission and absorption of the greenhouse gas.
Published Dec 12, 2015
Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations reached record levels in 2013.
Published Sep 27, 2013
Satellites observe a massive bloom of coccolithophore plankton in July 2012.
Published Jul 31, 2012
The Orbiting Carbon Observatory (OCO-2) may help scientists answer key questions about how carbon cycles between Earth’s atmosphere, ocean, and land.
Published Jul 3, 2014
The sum of Earth's plants, on land and in the ocean, changes slightly from year to year as weather patterns shift. This pair of images contrasts average plant growth in 2002 to growth in 2008, revealing small interannual changes.
Published Jun 6, 2009
Measurements from OCO-2 will provide a baseline for monitoring changes in emissions.
Published Nov 17, 2016
NASA’s new Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 calibrated its sensors by taking data from an area where ground stations could provide ground truth.
Published Nov 7, 2014
The tiniest of living organisms exert an outsized influence on the planet by producing vast amounts of oxygen.
Published Feb 7, 2016
By providing a measurement of all of the carbon being stored in Earth’s plants, maps like these help scientists figure out what happens to the carbon people release by burning fossil fuels.
Published Jul 8, 2011
As global and regional warming continues, winter emissions of carbon dioxide from Arctic lands are offsetting what plants absorb in the summer.
Published Nov 19, 2019
This image of the summer phytoplankton bloom in the Barents Sea off the northwesternmost corner of Russia was captured by the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) on NASA’s Aqua satellite on August 19, 2009. The milky-blue color that dominates the bloom suggests that it contains large numbers of phytoplankton called coccolithophores.
Published Aug 22, 2009
The Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 will help scientists quantify the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
Published Aug 12, 2014
Every night, under the cover of darkness, countless small sea creatures swim from the ocean depths to feed near the surface, then descend out of sight again before daybreak.
Published Dec 4, 2019
When scientists corrected errors in ocean temperature data, a mysterious cooling trend that appeared to occur between 2003 and 2005 disappeared.
Published Nov 6, 2008
In several decades of observing the ocean with satellites, our vision has changed as much as the sea.
Published Apr 30, 2019
