From their perch on a rocky ridge in southwestern Greenland, graduate students Rebecca Walker and Conor Higgins peer through binoculars, looking for caribou. It’s a cool, June day and the tundra is ablaze with tiny magenta, pink, and yellow wildflowers. Crystalline lakes dot the glacially carved valleys, and from the round-topped mountains you can catch the glint of the massive Greenland Ice Sheet to the east. Below, the Watson River tumbles toward Kangerlussuaq Fjord, 12 miles to the west. It’s quiet, save for bird song, the rush of the wind, and the frequent crash of ice shearing off nearby Russell Glacier.

So far in 2018, wildfires have burned almost 7 million acres across the U.S. and their smoke has blanketed much of the West, with some smoke plumes extending all the way to the East Coast and beyond.

While the U.S. East Coast prepares for Hurricane Florence, the U.S. state of Hawaii is feeling the effects of Tropical Storm Olivia. NASA’s Aqua satellite provided an infrared look at Olivia that showed wind shear was affecting it before landfall.

NASA-NOAA’s Suomi NPP satellite passed over the eye of powerful Category 4 Hurricane Florence and found the storm over 400 miles in diameter and the capability to generate very heavy rainfall.

Global warming could lead to the extinction of up to 10% of frog and toad species endemic to Brazil’s Atlantic Rainforest biome within about the next 50 years. The temperature and precipitation regimes predicted to occur between 2050 and 2070 will be lethal for species that are less well adapted to climate variation and inhabit certain areas of the Atlantic Rainforest.

NASA-NOAA’s Suomi NPP satellite passed directly over Super Typhoon Mangkhut from space and stared down its almost 30 nautical-mile-wide eye to the waters of the Northwestern Pacific Ocean. Mangkhut is threatening the northern Philippines where is known as Ompong.

The weather plays a significant role in how a wildfire grows, how fast it spreads, and how dangerous it can become for firefighters, but few tools exist to help fire managers anticipate days when weather conditions will have the greatest potential to make wildfire erratic or especially dangerous. The USDA Forest Service is expanding the options with the Hot-Dry-Windy Index(HDW), a new fire-weather prediction tool based on the key atmospheric variables that affect wildland fire: temperature, moisture, and wind.

NASA-NOAA’s Suomi NPP satellite found that as Tropical Storm Barijat was affecting Southern China, wind shear was affecting the storm.

How is a telecommunications network like an ecosystem?

Tree canopies and the running streams below, or coral reefs and the ocean waters that flow around them, are interconnected components of a larger whole: an ecosystem. These ecosystem parts are in communication with one another, scientists have learned, via signals transmitted among earth, air and water.

Tracking how air moves at night near the Earth's surface could provide insights into how air pollution spreads and when it's best to apply pesticides.