Earth has been a snowball and a hothouse at different times in its past. So if the climate changed before humans, how can we be sure we’re responsible for the dramatic warming that’s happening today?

In part it’s because we can clearly show the causal link between carbon dioxide emissions from human activity and the 1.28 degree Celsius (and rising) global temperature increase since preindustrial times.

But paleoclimatologists have also made great strides in understanding the processes that drove climate change in Earth’s past. Here’s a primer on 10 ways climate varies naturally, and how each compares with what’s happening now.
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This app from NASA's EOSDIS provides the capability to interactively browse over 600 global, full-resolution satellite imagery layers on desktop and mobile devices. Many of the imagery layers are updated within three hours of observation, showing the entire Earth as it is "right now". This supports time-critical applications such as wildfire management, air quality measurements, and flood monitoring. Some satellite imagery layers span almost 30 years, providing a long term view of our dynamic planet. The underlying data is available for download, and Arctic and Antarctic views of several imagery layers are available for a “full globe” perspective.
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