For about six months, NASA s Terra satellite has been circling the Earth, collecting images of snow and ice cover and monitoring surface temperatures in an effort to learn more about our planet s weather patterns. Earlier instruments were less sophisticated and automated, making it even harder to differentiate between the bands of light. Measurements of snow taken during the spring, along with measurements of soil moisture, atmospheric circulation patterns and sea surface temperature patterns, can help scientists predict what kind of conditions dry or rainy a particular area can expect that summer.
Fires burning at higher temperatures spread quickly and consume a lot of biomass.
Fires burning at lower temperatures spread more slowly, but aren t as efficient and cause a lot of pollution to be released into the air. There is no way to directly measure the amount of carbon dioxide that is in our atmosphere, but knowing how much of the phytoplankton are using helps scientists to track the sources and sinks of the gas in response to global climate change. La Ni a sea surface temperature anomalies. During an El Ni o period, phytoplankton productivity in the Pacific Ocean drops dramatically. At the time of a La Ni a period, easterly winds in the Pacific pick up again and allow nutrient-rich water from deep in the ocean to rise to the surface and support an abundant phytoplankton population.