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[ off camera ] “Well everybody is familiar with rain. It literally falls in our backyard.

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But much is still unknown about rain and the water cycle and

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NASA is getting ready to launch a new satellite that’s going to help explain some of that.

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Here to talk about this new satellite is Dr. Michelle Thaller from NASA’s

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Goddard Space Flight Center. Thanks for joining us.” [ Thaller ] “Great to be here, thank you.”

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[ off camera ] “So in a couple of hours NASA’s going to launch a new satellite that’s going to measure

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rain and snowfall around the world. What’s so special about this satellite?”

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[ Thaller ] “That’s right we’re getting ready to launch the core observatory of the Global

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Precipitation Measurement mission. And this is actually a joint mission between NASA and

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the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency or JAXA.

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And this is actually the flagship of a constellation of nine different spacecraft.

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All of these spacecraft are going to be orbiting together returning data and

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measuring the entire precipitation content of the Earth’s atmosphere.

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Every location we’re actually going to have a measurement for every three hours. So wherever

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you are on the planet, one of these spacecraft and the whole thing working together will know how much

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rain or snow is falling every three hours.”

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[ off camera ] “Why do we need to measure precipitation from space?”

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[ Thaller ] “Well you know in the United States we’re very used to having weather radar. You can actually sort of turn on the weather

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broadcast and find out where rain is falling, where snow is falling. These are

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ground-based radar systems. And we have pretty good coverage where we live, but

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there are actually vast areas of the planet where we don’t have ground-based weather radar.

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And so we need to come in from space to get an actual global view.

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We see here in this visualization where precipitation is falling all over the

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planet. And of course everything is connected. One area of the world influences

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another. Where it’s dry in one place can influence where rain falls in another

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place. So to get a view of the entire system you need to look globally.

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And not only weather radar, but think about rain gauges to actually measure how much rain is falling.

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If you took every rain gauge on the planet and put them all together,

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they would only cover an area about the size of two basketball courts.

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So there’s a huge area that we’re missing. We’re actually missing the story

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of how precipitation works on a global level.”

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[ off camera ] “How will GPM improve monitoring for hazards like hurricanes and floods?”

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[ Thaller ] “Well you know, one of the things that GPM is going to be able to do

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is use instruments that use radar to actually pierce through storms.

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So as GPM flies over everyday, radar will be able to look

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down and make maps of what’s going on inside storms themselves

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see where the precipitation is most intense. This is a visualization

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of Hurricane Katrina. You’ll notice there are these very high, red towers

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inside there. And those are areas where the hurricane is very energetic.

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There’s lots of precipitation falling. So we can see how storms change every

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three hours and model how they’re going to evolve in the future,

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what their paths may be. So GPM is giving us sort of this wonderful x-ray

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system to see through storms and produce maps of how they change over time.

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That research is going to be key to predicting better how they evolve,

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where they’re going to go and how destructive they’re going to be.”

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[ off camera ] “Why is it important to, uh, study rain and snowfall in a changing climate?”

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[ Thaller ] “Well we definitely know very clearly that the Earth’s

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atmosphere is getting warmer. And that’s going to have an effect on precipitation patterns

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all over the planet. When something warms up it means you’re actually putting energy

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in and that mean that there may be more extreme variations. There may be areas

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that are dry now that will get dryer and wet that will get wetter. So

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extreme events like floods for example, we’re going to be able to see over

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time whether certain areas are more prone to flooding. Landslides,

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we’re going to know exactly how much water is falling over areas of the planet that are prone to landslides.

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So as climate change goes on, we’re going to see wet

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areas of the planet getting wetter and dry areas possibly getting dryer.

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We need to have an understanding of the entire global system of precipitation to be able to make

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better predictions about what’s going to happen in the future.”

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[ off camera ] “Tell us were can we learn more?” [Thaller] “Well if you’d like to learn more about GPM,

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please go to our website NASA.GOV / GPM.

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You can see animations of the spacecraft. You can learn more about what sort of data we’re going to be

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returning and I encourage you also to look for us on social media.”

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[ off camera ] “Dr. Michelle Thaller, thanks so much for joining us.” [Thaller] “Thank you.”