Norman Kuring

A view of the southeastern United States from about 2550 kilometers above the western Caribbean. White cloud streets frame the coastline. The image was created from data collected by Suomi-NPP/VIIRS on February 1, 2026.

Winter winds push cool dry air across the southeastern United States. Once the winds reach the Atlantic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, they pick up moisture, and rotating convective cells form #cloudstreets.

A larger version of this image is here:
photos.app.goo.gl/fy4RGMyyTK54...

#VIIRS

I used channels 2, 3, and 4. I did not use Channel 8 to pansharpen, because that much data overwhelms my machine's memory when working with 3 scenes together. Sometimes I'll use Channel 5 to separate water from other bright targets, but I didn't do that this time.

White icebergs and sea ice fill the lower left corner of the image while lines of white clouds and their dark shadows stretch towards the upper right. The rest of the image is filled with the blue, green, yellowish, and reddish swirls of the Ross Sea and the phytoplankton blooms it contains. The bloom colors have been enhanced to make them more visible. These data were collected by Landsat 8 / OLI on January 25, 2026 at 20:38 UTC.

Summertime is very productive in the #RossSea along the Antarctic coast. This enhanced view shows the #phytoplankton blooming there on January 25, 2026.

A larger version of the image showing more of the sea + McMurdo Sound & Ross Island is available here:
drive.google.com/file/d/1xLOb...

#Landsat8

Green and turquoise swirls in the blue ocean south of green and tan Cape St. Francis, South Africa indicate the presence of phytoplankton blooms. Sun glint highlights both surface swells (tiny linear repeating patterns having mostly the same orientation) and internal waves (larger, more widely spaced criss-crossing patterns). Several large ships and their wakes also traverse the ocean pixels. This image was collected by Landsat 8 / OLI on January 24, 2026 at 8:11 UTC.

The #Agulhas Current turbulently interacts with the continental shelf south of #CapeStFrancis leading to phytoplankton blooms (that color the ocean) & internal waves (that become visible by modifying surface smoothness).

The full #Landsat8 scene is available here:
photos.app.goo.gl/ps2geDxPWn4U...

The tan desert landscape of Oman in the upper left (northwest) corner of the image contrasts with the blue of the Arabian Sea and white clouds in the rest of the image. Many ribbons of green (likely slicks of the mixotrophic dinoflagellate, Noctiluca scintillans) highlight convergence zones in this turbulent region of the northern Indian Ocean. PACE/OCI data collected on 19 January 2026

Filamentous phytoplankton blooms fill the western #ArabianSea on January 19, 2026.

The likely culprit:
www.earthdata.nasa.gov/news/feature...

A larger version of the entire northern Indian Ocean region is here:
photos.app.goo.gl/GA3JmT9z79Af...

#PACE_OCI

The blue waters of the Black Sea painted with turquoise swirls of suspended sediment and phytoplankton meet the green Georgia coastline on the right surrounded by white, snow-covered Caucasus Mountains. A smoke plume drifts westward across the sea. This Landsat 9/OLI-2 image was collected on January 7, 2026.

Smoke from fire just north of the River Rioni drifts westward from the Georgia coastline over the eastern Black Sea.

A larger, higher-resolution version of the image is here:
photos.app.goo.gl/qA1F2iGX8Z3C...

#Landsat9

View of coastal Montenegro and Albania collected on 1 January 2026 by Landsat 8/OLI

Cape of Rodon and Cape of Palla's Tail in Albania with blue-green swirls in the Adriatic Sea offshore. Collected on 1 January 2026 by Landsat 8/OLI

Blue-green swirls in Lake Skadar on the Albania/Montenegro border Collected on 1 January 2026 by Landsat 8/OLI

For no particular reason, here are some views of #Montenegro and #Albania collected by #Landsat8 today.

You can get a full-resolution image here:
photos.app.goo.gl/Skgk8Rvi5LLA...

Happy 2026!

NASA’s Largest Library Is Closing Amid Staff and Lab Cuts

I'm saddened by this decision. During my years at Goddard, this library's technical reference books and journals -- publications that I would not have had easy access to elsewhere -- undergirded the work that I did.

www.nytimes.com/2025/12/31/c...

Yippee Ki-Yay!

We are headed down a dark path.

Lots of butterflies on our Joe Pye weed. Mostly Tiger swallowtails but also a lone Monarch! 🦋
#nativeplants #monarchbutterfly #tigerswallowtail #joepyeweed

Eddies and ribbons of cyanobacteria blooms paint the otherwise blue waters of the southwestern Baltic Sea. The land on the left (west) is Denmark; along the top right lies Sweden; the peninsula protruding into the bottom center belongs to Germany. This scene was collected by Landsat 8 on August 18, 2025 at 10:08 UTC.

Summertime #cyanobacteria blooms persist in the southwestern #BalticSea, highlighting eddies and other flow lines in the region. Ship wakes cut through the surface slicks. Clusters of white dots are offshore wind farms.

#Landsat8

Larger image available here: photos.app.goo.gl/DN9j9qQHtd9s...

Landsat 8 image of Scoresby Sound in Greenland collected on July 6, 2025 at 13:39 UTC. White icecaps rest atop rugged red, green, and buff mountains while striated off-white glaciers flow towards the blue and cyan fjords of the sound. White icebergs speckle the blue water's surface. Brownish suspended sediments emerge from the coastline at a couple of the valley mouths.

After sweltering in the Washington DC suburban heat and humidity this morning, I felt like looking at something cooler for a bit.

#Landsat8
#Greenland

The full Landsat 8 scene is here:
photos.app.goo.gl/gWwxFH49WruT...

A late instar nymph of Lycorma delicatula sits atop a young Echinacea purpurea flower. The nymph has black legs with white spots and a red and black carapace with white spots. The flower is green and yellow with hints of red.

A late instar nymph of Lycorma delicatula sits atop a young Echinacea purpurea flower. The nymph has black legs with white spots and a red and black carapace with white spots. The flower is green and yellow with hints of red.

A late instar nymph of Lycorma delicatula sits atop a young Echinacea purpurea flower. The nymph has black legs with white spots and a red and black carapace with white spots. The flower is green and yellow with hints of red.

This striking red invader of our garden was nearing adulthood until it met the bottom of my shoe.

#LycormaDelicatula
#EchinaceaPurpurea

A view of Earth composed of 9 orbits' worth of PACE/OCI data collected on May 31, 2025. The tans and greens of North America fill the upper left portion of the pictured globe. Northern South America is at the bottom. The tan Sahara occupies the right edge separated from greenish Europe in the upper right by the blue Mediterranean Sea. Bluish-white Greenland lies near the top of the globe. Tan-colored smoke from Canadian wildfires has drifted north, south, and eastward across the Atlantic Ocean. At the same time tan-colored dust has drifted westward across the Atlantic farther south (near the bottom of the image). Turquoise and green swirls of phytoplankton blooms can be seen around Iceland and in the North and Black Seas. The thinning ice of Canada's Northwest Passage stands out as a light blue band in the upper left. White clouds form myriad patterns over ice, land, and water.

At the end of May, Canadian wildfire smoke drifted eastward across the North Atlantic while Saharan dust drifted westward across the tropical Atlantic. Meanwhile, phytoplankton bloomed in the waters below.

A 100-megapixel version of this image is here:
photos.app.goo.gl/F8RHdMoKLzX6...

#PACE_OCI

Thirty-four years ago
🩷🩷🩷🩷🩷

Colorful photos of plants and animals in and near Bowie, Maryland arranged in such a way as to spell out "MARYLAND NATIVE" against a black background. The following species are represented. Anaxyrus americanus Aquilegia canadensis Aronia melanocarpa Baptisia australis Camponotus chromaiodes Chelone glabra Chelone obliqua Chlosyne nycteis Diogmites neoternatus Epargyreus clareus Eurybia divaricata Impatiens capensis Juglans nigra Kalmia latifolia Lindera benzoin Lobelia siphilitica Lonicera sempervirens Misumessus oblongus Nerodia sipedon Pisaurina mira Poecile carolinensis Quercus alba Salvia lyrata Scolia dubia Sisyrinchium angustifolium Sphex nudus Spigelia marylandica Symphotrichum laeve Terrapene carolina Zelus luridus

The American lawn: initially appealing in its uniformity, but ultimately boring, never mind being harmful to the environment. Native flora bring visual interest plus the rest of a fascinating ecosystem on their coattails.

homegrownnationalpark.org/doug-tallamy/

photos.app.goo.gl/wVZpPmw7C7rB...

Clockwise from top: Bleeding heart Fleabane Golden Alexander Wild geranium Golden ragwort Green and Gold Center: Moss phlox

These are some of the flowers that were blooming in our yard on #EarthDay2025 .

An oblique view of mostly cloud-free western Europe shows phytoplankton blooms in the waters around the British Isles. Land surfaces are various shades of green and brown with some white snow-covered mountains. Atlantic Ocean and North and Baltic Sea waters have mostly, blue, green, and aquamarine hues. Surrounding clouds are white. The source data for the image were collected during four orbits of the Aqua / MODIS instrument on April 7, 2025.

The British Isles are seldom so cloud free, so I thought this recent #AquaMODIS view worth sharing, especially since the spring phytoplankton bloom had painted the ocean so nicely.

John of Gaunt never got to see "This earth of majesty" from such a perspective.

drive.google.com/file/d/18wpX...

Opening Fagus grandifolia bud: The brown sheath has split revealing fuzzy light green buds inside.

Walking through the woods
Fagus grandifolia
Opens in softness

Brown, tan, and green hues streak Lake Pontchartrain north of grayish New Orleans. The brown Mississippi River meanders through the bottom left quadrant of the scene. The connection to the Gulf of Mexico appears at the right side of the image. Lake Maurepas looks orangish-brown just to the left (west) of Lake Pontchartrain. Landsat 8 scene collected at 16:31 UTC on 22 March 2025

#LakePontchartrain, an estuary of the #GulfOfMexico, lies just north of #NewOrleans. It gains its color -- exaggerated here -- from suspended sediments, colored dissolved organic matter, phytoplankton, and various effluvia of human activity.

#Landsat8

Larger image:
drive.google.com/file/d/1hZw8...

Man near the Washington Monument wearing blue jeans and a blue Patagonia raincoat holds a protest sign with an image of Greenland.

There were very few duplicate signs at the "Hands off!" protest today. Most were homemade and expressed the bearer's personal issues -- sometimes rather humorously, sometimes rather NSFW -- with the current administration.

P.S. This was not one of the funny ones.

The data for this image of the North Pacific Ocean were collected over several orbits of the PACE/OCI instrument on February 26 (eastern half) and 27 (western half), 2025. The characteristic comma shapes of three extratropical cyclones are visible in the northern half of this image. The predominant colors in the image are blue (the ocean) and white (the clouds and ice).

The ocean partially visible here covers about a third of Earth's surface and it bears the name Pacific but it can often be less than peaceful as the pictured extratropical cyclones in the north suggest.
(The commas missing above are in the image.)

photos.app.goo.gl/VQZuoXbVsuHz...

#PACE_OCI

Landsat 8 montage of the coastal region near the mouth of China's Yellow River. The data making up the image were collected on February 24, 2025 at 2:42 UTC. Geometric shapes (mostly rectangles) tessellate the five panels of this image. Most of the shapes are green, blue, tan, or brown. Many are aquaculture ponds.

In and around China's Yellow River delta the land is carved up into rectangles.

Lots of them.

Really, I wouldn't want to count them all.

There are other shapes too, but it's mostly rectangles.

There are still more on display in this much larger image.
drive.google.com/file/d/1iCp1...

#Landsat8

Apple pie π

Happy π Day!

Surface slicks of green phytoplankton (most likely Noctiluca scintillans) trace out the spiral arms of a cyclonic eddy in the Gulf of Oman to the northeast of Muscat. Ships and their wakes can be seen cutting through the surface slicks. The data for this image were collected by Landsat 8/OLI on March 8, 2025 at 06:28 UTC

This cyclonic eddy in the Gulf of Oman aligns the phytoplankton near its surface making its otherwise invisible streamlines visible.

#Landsat8
Larger image: photos.app.goo.gl/zNB67GJgqQyP...

To President Zelensky, From an Embarrassed American Dear President Zelensky,

Dear President Zelensky,

As it is likely that our paths will never cross in person, I could not let this day go by without trying to reach you here.

I come to you humbly as an American citizen who is thoroughly and completely embarrassed of our leaders.

johnpavlovitz.substack.com/p/to-preside...

a butterfly is sitting on top of a sunflower on a blue and yellow background ALT: a butterfly is sitting on top of a sunflower on a blue and yellow background

I stand with Ukraine. President Zelenskyy and the Ukrainian people should have the United States support instead of the embarrassing treatment given by the White House.

Green tendrils fill the blue water of the northern Arabian Sea. Tan deserts of the Arabian Peninsula and the Horn of Africa appear on the left (west) while the tans and greens of India and Pakistan appear on the right (east). The green tendrils in the water likely indicate the presence of the mixotrophic dinoflagellate, Noctiluca scintillans. White clouds stretch across the top and bottom of the image. This image comprises data collected by PACE/OCI on February 17, 2025.

Tiny balloons
Surf-jostled scintillators
Predators & producers
Mixotrophs keeping live green prey
Phytoplankton factories fixing CO2

Balloons burgeon
Green spans 1000km of Arabian Sea
Altered climate
New pattern
Noctiluca scintillans

www.nature.com/articles/nco...
photos.app.goo.gl/YaCpcWVe4Jfy...