News
New satellite that will survey most of Earth's water is ready for launch
The first mission to survey nearly all of the water on Earth’s surface is ready to launch. The international Surface Water and Ocean Topography mission is set to liftoff from Vandenberg Space Force Base in California at 6:46 a.m. ET on Friday.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate science
State of Play
What began as a theory in the 1890s — that industrial emissions of carbon dioxide could increase global temperatures — had progressed to a scientific fact a century later. Scientists across a range of disciplines are studying the impact of the still-growing concentration of carbon dioxide and other so-called “greenhouse gases” in the atmosphere as they call for industrial and governmental policies to slow, then halt, the warming of the planet.