Earth System Science Cartoon Schematic

  • Released Monday, October 12, 2015
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Earth system science is composed of broad areas of study including: air, water, land, life, and solar.

This animation was designed to be shown as an introductory piece when discussing the concept of Earth Systems Science. Earth science can be divided into broad categories of study including: air (atmosphere), water/ice (hydrosphere/cryosphere), land (lithosphere), life (biosphere), and solar (heliosphere). NASA studies each of these broad categories of Earth system science. Representative stills are wrapped to the multiple spheres next to the labels.

The data sets shown on the individual globes are as follows (left to right):
  • Air: ozone, winds, carbon monoxide, carbon dioxide, pressure, el nino, temperature, winds

  • ice: temperature, precip, precip accumulation, salinity, glaciers, sea ice, precip

  • land: bathymetry, continental plates, vegitation anomaly, fires, fluorescence, lightning, plates

  • life: phytoplankton, NDVI, night lights, plankton difference, population, vegitation index, NDVI

  • solar: outgoing longwave radiation, radiation flux, irradiance, cloud albedo, aurora, albedo

Earth system science is composed of broad areas of study including: air, water, land, life, and solar. This version starts with a view of the Sun.

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Credits

Please give credit for this item to:
NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio

This page was originally published on Monday, October 12, 2015.
This page was last updated on Wednesday, May 3, 2023 at 1:49 PM EDT.