An unprecedented wildfire is burning on the island of Gran Canaria, Spain’s Canary Islands since August 17, 2019. Although it has now started to subside, it engulfed around 10 000 ha (24 710 acres) of land, leading to the evacuation of over 9 000 people from...
August 21, 2019
Extreme monsoon rains hit western India and Myanmar in early August 2019, causing dramatic flooding and landslides and leaving at least 258 people dead. The animation below depicts satellite-based measurements of rainfall from August 1 - 12, 2019. The darkest reds...
August 15, 2019
A wildfire that broke out on Hawaii's Maui Island at 10:30 LT on July 11, 2019 spread to 4 040 ha (10 000 acres) by Friday morning. Thousands of people were forced to evacuate but were allowed to return after conditions improved. The fire grew out of control by...
July 12, 2019
After days of extremely heavy rain falling over Queensland, Australia this month, Flinders River has grown to a 'mega river' and is now 60 km (37 miles) wide in some of its parts. This is its most significant flooding in more than 50 years and so vast it...
February 14, 2019
Strong winds affecting northern Africa have pushed thick Saharan dust toward the Canary Islands and Greece on February 5 and 6, 2019, significantly lowering air quality in both regions. Large amounts of dust were pushed from Morocco and Mauritania toward the Canary...
February 06, 2019
At least 22 people were forced to evacuate on Monday, February 4, 2019, after lava flow produced by Mount Karangetan on Siau Island, Indonesia's North Sulawesi reached Malebuhe River near Batubulan village. The flow has almost reached the coastline as of...
February 04, 2019
According to imagery captured by satellites and passengers aboard airplanes, the Tinakula volcano in the Solomon Islands is active again. Its last eruptive period lasted from October 21 to 26, 2018 (VEI3). Heavy ashfall produced during the eruption was followed by...
January 29, 2019
The number of people killed in shallow M7.5 earthquake and tsunami it caused on September 28 climbed to 1 407 today, Sutopo Purwo Nugroho, spokesman for Indonesia's disaster mitigation agency said October 3, 2018. An estimated 66 000 homes have been destroyed or...
October 03, 2018
European Space Agency's used data provided by their trio of Swarm satellite and combined it with historical data from the German CHAMP satellite and observations from ships and aircraft to produce the most detailed map of the Earth's lithosphere. The map is...
April 11, 2018
Scientists have uncovered the ocean conditions that support a massive summertime bloom of algae that spans 16 % of the global ocean. Known as the Great Calcite Belt, this dense group of a microscopic phytoplankton, coccolithophores, can be seen in satellite images...
December 02, 2017
Productivity and stability of forest ecosystems strongly depend on the functional diversity of plant communities. UZH researchers have developed a new method to measure and map functional diversity of forests at different scales – from individual trees to...
November 19, 2017
Life. It's the one thing that, so far, makes Earth unique among the thousands of other planets we've discovered. Since the fall of 1997, NASA satellites have continuously and globally observed all plant life at the surface of the land and ocean. During the...
November 15, 2017
On the night of May 20, 2017, more than a million tons of rocks and dirt spilled over California's iconic Highway 1. The slide was so large it can be seen from space. The slide covered roughly 530 m (0.3 miles) of the scenic route in 10 to 12 m (35 to 40 feet)...
May 26, 2017
California has spectacularly emerged from one of its driest periods on record and ended its five-year drought by enduring one of its wettest periods on record. Its reservoirs, lakes, and mountainsides are now brimming with water and snow, though scientists caution...
April 21, 2017
Scientists are on the verge of providing daily, high-definition views of Earth at night. The announcement was made today during official release of the new, global composite map of night lights as observed in 2016, the clearest yet composite view of the patterns of...
April 12, 2017
China has released the first imagery from Fengyun-4A, the first of their second generation of Geostationary Meteorological Satellites. The satellite will support forecasts and warnings, numerical weather prediction, wildfire and space weather monitoring and more. It...
March 04, 2017
A new submarine eruption is taking place about 30 km (18.6 miles) north of Tonga's main island Tongatapu. It seems to have started on January 23, 2017. According to GeoNet, this volcano has been called 'Submarine Volcano III' in historic reports....
January 31, 2017