A system is an organized group of related components that work together to carry out functions that the individual parts cannot do alone.  The Earth System, like the human body system, are similar in that they comprise diverse parts that interact in complex ways.

Do you need instructions for how to use data from the Earth System Data Explorer in Microsoft Excel?  Visit this link to access a step-by-step guide.

The Cryosphere refers to any place on Earth where water is in its solid form, where low temperatures freeze water and turn it into ice. The frozen water can be in the form of solid ice or snow and occurs in many places around the Earth. People often think of the polar regions of our planet as the main home of the Cyrosphere; the North Pole in the Arctic, as well as the South Pole in the Antarctic. The cryosphere exists in the polar regions, but is also found wherever snow, sea ice, glaciers, permafrost, ice sheets, and icebergs exists. In these places, surface temperatures remain below freezing for a portion of each year. 

Students can interact with NASA data to build a custom visualizations of local, regional, or global plant growth patterns over time, using the Earth System Data Explorer to generate plots of satellite data as they develop models of this phenomenon.

Review this page to learn about the background of volcanoes and their eruptions.

Our Earth is a dynamic system with diverse subsystems that interact in complex ways. Questions that scientists have about the Earth as a System may include the following. As you learn more about the Earth System, reflect on these questions. 

Air quality is a measure of the pollution level in the air. Polluted air can be caused by many things. There are manmade and natural sources of emissions. 

Background information on the El Nino Southern Oscillation or ENSO.

Background information on ocean circulation.

Background on changing albedo values.