Interconnections between the Earth's water and carbon cycles represent a unique framework for conducting research in Earth science and for understanding the Earth's climate system. Exchanges of water, energy, and carbon between the surface and atmosphere are governed by hydrospheric and biospheric processes that can be studied using remote sensing.

JPL Water and Carbon Cycles Group members conduct remote sensing and modeling research to study the processes and interactions of the Earth's water and carbon cycles. The group's research focuses on three objectives derived from NASA's Earth Science strategy:

1. Improve understanding of the processes that control the global water and carbon cycles
2. Better quantify the variability of these cycles
3. Determine the predictability of these cycles on time scales from weeks to decades

Research is conducted through a number of interrelated projects and tasks in the following themes:

• Land-atmosphere water storages and fluxes
• Terrestrial ecology
• Snow hydrology and cold lands research
• Climate variability and predictability related to global water and energy cycles
• Space data analysis and new mission development