Our Changing Earth

The above image shows Carroll Glacier, Alaska. The left image is from August 1906 and the right image is from September 7, 2003. The images demonstrate the change in the ice between them. Image Credit: NASA's Global Climate Change website, http://climate.nasa.gov

Happy Earth Day, everyone! Okay. Technically I'm early. Earth Day is this Sunday, April 22nd. Begun in 1970 and now celebrated in more than 175 countries, Earth Day is is an annual international event to increase awareness and appreciation of the Earth's natural environment.

Earth Day 2012 falls on this Sunday, April 22nd. In celebration of the event, NASA's Webby Award-winning Global Climate Change website has unveiled a new version of its popular image gallery, "State of Flux." The gallery presents stunning images, mostly from space, of our ever-changing planet, chronicling changes taking place over time periods ranging from days to centuries.

The image gallery, which is continuously updated, presents pairs of before-and-after images that highlight the impacts of change, including the destruction caused by extreme events such as wildfires and floods, the retreat of glaciers caused by climate change, and the expanding footprint of urban areas due to population growth.

The redesigned image gallery currently features more than 160 comparison views and is now organized and sortable by categories, including ice, human impact, water, land cover and extreme events.
Another new feature of the website is a map view, which places each image into its geographical context. Guests can zoom in to specific locations on the map, or select by region, and see where particular changes are taking place around the globe. They can also share links to each image set and download high-resolution versions of the images.

NASA's Global Climate Change website is devoted to improving the public's understanding of Earth's changing climate, providing easy-to-understand information about the causes and effects of climate change and how NASA studies it. For more on NASA's Earth Science activities, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/topics/earth/index.html .

For more on NASA's Earth Day activities, visit: http://www.nasa.gov/earthday

NASA's Global Climate Change website: http://climate.nasa.gov

The "State of Flux" image gallery: http://climate.nasa.gov/sof

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