Home | Strategy | Missions | Scientific Objective | Contact | Documents | Datasets

The principal research objective is to explore the connection between weather processes and climate change and the fast dynamical/physical processes that govern climate responses and feedbacks. Particularly significant is the transformation of water among its three physical states - vapor, liquid, and ice - in the atmosphere and at the surface of the Earth. The condensation of water in clouds and snow at the surface control both the albedo and radiation balance of the planet, and the constant renewal of fresh water resources. The development of weather systems, the cloud life cycle and their role in the water and atmospheric energy cycles are approached as a single integrated problem. Another central science objective is exploring the responses of hydrologic regimes to changes in climate (precipitation, evaporation, and surface run-off) and the influence of surface hydrology (soil moisture, snow accumulation and soil freezing) on climate.

Overall, NASA’s unique vocation is to make key scientific inputs using global observations from space and exploit these data for analysis and monitoring of the Earth-system as well as validation, initialization and assimilation in global prediction systems. NASA supports related research, especially process-resolving modeling or laboratory studies, and invests in field campaigns, as a means to enhance the scientific investigations of global phenomena identified by space-based observation. NASA is the only national agency that has the capability to support the full range of investigation, from large-scale remote sensing to in situ field observations, data acquisition and analysis, and development of prediction systems that can assimilate the full range of information.

To foster improved water-cycle predictions, integrating models of the water and energy cycles at global scales must faithfully predict variations in precipitation and other key hydrologic variables and exploit improved observations of precipitation, evaporation and the land hydrologic state. NASA Goddard global prediction systems integrate current and future space-based and in-situ observations that are global in scope that cotinually advance the skill and utility of climate predictions. Our efforts take advantage of in-house modeling, data assimilation, and satellite technology efforts while also contributing and collaborating with researchers from other NASA centers, operational and scientific research agencies, and the community-at-large.

Click here or the image for a larger view

Conditions of Use
Any and all materials published on the GSFC Earth Science Enterprise Water and Energy Cycle web site are freely available for re-publication or re-use, except where copyright is indicated. We ask that the GSFC Earth Science Enterprise Water and Energy Cycle web site (http://gwec.gsfc.nasa.gov/) be given credit for its original materials.