As temperatures rise and soil moisture decreases, plants are stressed, which can lead to <a href="/earth/climate/crops_withering.html&edu=high&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/h/neptune/h/neptune/neptune_il.html">crop withering</a>. <a href="/teacher_resources/online_courses/health/events_health.html&edu=high&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/h/neptune/h/neptune/neptune_il.html">Droughts</a> accompanied by increased temperatures can lead to famine, social and political disruptions. Scientists are helping with early identification of drought that might trigger food shortages. Watch the NBC Learn video - <a href="/earth/changing_planet/withering_crops_intro.html&edu=high&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/h/neptune/h/neptune/neptune_il.html">Changing Planet: Withering Crops</a> to find out more.<p><small><em>Image taken by Tomas Castelazo, Creative Commons <a href=&quot;http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/deed.en&quot;>Attribution 3.0 Unported</a> license.</em></small></p>Greenland's <a href="http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/polar/cryosphere_glacier1.html">ice sheet</a> saw a record <a href="http://www.windows2universe.org/headline_universe/olpa/greenland_10dec07.html">melt</a> in July 2012. Scientists studying this event have found that this melting event was triggered by an influx of unusually warm air and amplified by the presence of a blanket of thin low-level <a href="http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Atmosphere/cloud.html">clouds</a> which pushed temperatures up above freezing. For more information see the <a href="http://www.news.wisc.edu/21638">press release</a> from the University of Wisconsin Madison.<p><small><em>Image courtesy of University of Wisconsin-Madison</em></small></p>According to <a href="http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-277">NASA scientists</a>, the Voyager 1 spacecraft entered interstellar space in August 2012, becoming the first spacecraft to leave the <a href="/our_solar_system/solar_system.html&edu=high&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/h/neptune/h/neptune/neptune_il.html">solar system</a>. The space probe is about 19 billion km from the <a href="/sun/sun.html&edu=high&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/h/neptune/h/neptune/neptune_il.html">Sun</a>. <a href="/space_missions/voyager.html&edu=high&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/h/neptune/h/neptune/neptune_il.html">Voyager 1 and 2</a> were launched in 1977 on a <a href="/space_missions/voyager.html&edu=high&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/h/neptune/h/neptune/neptune_il.html">mission</a> that flew them both by <a href="/jupiter/jupiter.html&edu=high&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/h/neptune/h/neptune/neptune_il.html">Jupiter</a> and <a href="/saturn/saturn.html&edu=high&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/h/neptune/h/neptune/neptune_il.html">Saturn</a>, with Voyager 2 continuing to <a href="/uranus/uranus.html&edu=high&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/h/neptune/h/neptune/neptune_il.html">Uranus</a> and <a href="/neptune/neptune.html&edu=high&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/h/neptune/h/neptune/neptune_il.html">Neptune</a>. Voyager 2 is the longest continuously operated spacecraft. It is about 15 billion km away from the <a href="/sun/sun.html&edu=high&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/h/neptune/h/neptune/neptune_il.html">Sun</a>.<p><small><em>Image courtesy of NASA</em></small></p>New observations by the MESSENGER spacecraft provide support for the hypothesis that Mercury harbors abundant water ice and other frozen volatile materials in its permanently shadowed (shown in red) polar craters. Areas where polar deposits of ice imaged by Earth-based radar are shown in yellow.<p><small><em>Image courtesy of NASA/Johns Hopkins University Applied Physics Laboratory/Carnegie Institution of Washington/National Astronomy and Ionosphere Center, Arecibo Observatory</em></small></p>This first global map of <a href="http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Water/ocean.html">ocean</a> surface saltiness, released in September 2012 by the NASA Aquarius mission team, shows the distribution of salt in the first 2 cm of the Earth's ocean. <a href="http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Water/salinity.html">Salinity</a> variations are one of the main drivers of <a href="http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Water/circulation1.html">ocean circulation</a>, and are closely connected with the <a href="http://www.windows2universe.org/earth/Water/water_cycle.html">cycling of freshwater</a> around the planet. High salinity is seen in the Mediterranean, Atlantic, and the Arabian Sea.<p><small><em>Image courtesy of NASA/GSFC/JPL-Caltech</em></small></p>A new study has found that <a href="/earth/Atmosphere/airpollution_intro.html&edu=high&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/h/neptune/h/neptune/neptune_il.html">pollution</a> from <a href="/earth/Atmosphere/particulates.html&edu=high&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/h/neptune/h/neptune/neptune_il.html">fine particles</a> in the air - mainly the result of burning coal or <a href="/earth/interior/eruptions.html&edu=high&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/h/neptune/h/neptune/neptune_il.html">volcanic eruptions</a> - can shade <a href="/earth/Life/cnidarian.html&edu=high&dev=1/earth/Atmosphere/moons/h/neptune/h/neptune/neptune_il.html">corals</a> from sunlight and cool the surrounding water resulting in reduced growth rates. Coral growth rates in the Caribbean were affected by volcanic aerosol emissions in the early 20th century and by aerosol emissions caused by humans in the later 20th century. For more information, see the <a href="http://www.exeter.ac.uk/news/featurednews/title_278202_en.html">press release</a>.<p><small><em>Image courtesy of Toby Hudson (Wikimedia Commons)</em></small></p>


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