CALIPSO Stories
NASA’s CloudSat Ends Mission Peering Into the Heart of Clouds
Over the course of nearly two decades, its powerful radar provided never-before-seen details of clouds and helped advance global weather and climate predictions. CloudSat, a NASA mission that peered into hurricanes, tallied global snowfall rates, and achieved other weather and…
First Long-Duration Lidar Satellite Mission CALIPSO Ends
CALIPSO, a lidar satellite that advanced the world’s understanding of climate, weather and air quality, ended its scientific mission August 1 after 17 years of operation.
NASA Satellites Show How Clouds Respond to Arctic Sea Ice Change
Clouds are one of the biggest wildcards in predictions of how much and how fast the Arctic will continue to warm in the future. Depending on the time of the year and the changing environment in which they form and…
Passing Clouds Cause Some Marine Animals to Make Mini-Migrations During the Day
Every evening, small fish and microscopic animals called zooplankton journey to the ocean surface, where they feast on microscopic plants under the moonlight before returning to the depths at dawn. With data collected during the EXport Processes in the Ocean…
Five Ways NASA Helps With Shark Conservation
While scientists at our partner institutions are directly focusing on shark conservation, NASA’s Earth-observing satellites collect key information about sharks’ habitat – the ocean.
Earth Day Connections: NASA Study Predicts Less Saharan Dust in Future Winds
During 2020, global average surface temperatures were the hottest on record, tying with 2016 as the warmest recorded year. Last year was also the most active hurricane season to date, with many storms quickly intensifying. Temperature and weather systems each…
NASA Observations Aid Efforts to Track California’s Wildfire Smoke From Space
Wildfires have been burning across the state of California for weeks – some of them becoming larger complexes as different fires merge. One of those was the August Complex Fire, which reportedly began as 37 distinct fires caused by lightning…
NASA Satellite Reveals How Much Saharan Dust Feeds Amazon’s Plants
What connects Earth’s largest, hottest desert to its largest tropical rain forest? The Sahara Desert is a near-uninterrupted brown band of sand and scrub across the northern third of Africa. The Amazon rain forest is a dense green mass of…