As the earth sciences move toward an interactive global observation capability, a new generation of cyberinfrastructure is required. Realtime control of remote instruments, remote visualization or large data objects, metadata searching of federated data repositories, and collaborative analysis of complex simulations and observations must be possible using software agents interacting with web and Grid services. Several prototyping projects are underway, funded by NSF, NASA, and NIH, which are building national to global scale examples of such systems. These are driven by remote observation and simulation of the solid earth, oceans, and atmosphere with a specific focus on the coastal zone and environmental hydrology. I will review several of these projects and describe the cyber-architecture which is emerging.