The number, breadth and sophistication of Earth System satellite products has grown considerably in the last decade, and outpaced their utilization for the evaluation of Earth System / Climate models. To fully exploit satellite data for the purposes of evaluating Global Climate Models (GCMs), specifically those contributing to the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project (CMIP), NASA and PCMDI/DOE have developed a partnership to identify satellite data sets well-suited for model evaluation, document and format the data sets in the most suitable manner for CMIP model evaluation, and disseminate the data sets in a manner parallel to the archived model data (i.e. via the Earth System Grid). The specifics of this activity will be discussed in a separate presentation in this session. This presentation will describe a number of ongoing applications of contemporary satellite data to the evaluation of model contributions to CMIP3 and CMIP5, focusing mainly on CMIP5 to the extent they are available. The satellite-derived variables to be considered will include quantities relevant to the ocean (e.g., sea surface temperature, sea level height, ocean vector winds), land (e.g., NDVI, NPP), atmosphere (e.g., clouds, rainfall, ozone), and cryosphere (e.g., sea ice). The principle areas necessitating model improvement will be highlighted as well as caveats associated with the satellite retrievals.