WEBVTT FILE

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[Music]

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Behold the Earth,

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teaming with life,

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ideally suited

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for the development
of human civilization.

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It's no wonder that
previous generations

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held the fundamental belief

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that the resources of
the world were unlimited,

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that our planet with this
ideal environment for life

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was provided
for our benefit

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and that we bear
no responsibility

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for ensuring that the
Earth remains fertile

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for the development
of our civilization.

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But as our
population has grown,

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our appetite for
energy has increased

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and in some cases we
have misused our land.

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We can no longer assume

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that the Earth will
remain eternally ideal

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for the advancement
of our civilization

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or the quality
of our life.

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Rather we will forevermore

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be called upon to heed
that biblical admonition,

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we need to be wise
stewards of creation.

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But how do we
know what to do?

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How does the
Earth really work?

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How could humans influence
our climate or sea levels

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or any other aspect of the
habitability of our planet?

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Fortunately,

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as our technological
civilization has grown

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to where humans
can affect the Earth,

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we have also been provided with
the tools to study the Earth

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and understand it,
predict its future

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and determine the actions

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that will be most effective
to protect our future

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for generations to come.

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In the early 1980s,

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we've been studying

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the individual
components of the Earth;

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the atmosphere
through meteorology

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and atmospheric chemistry,

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the oceans through
oceanography,

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the land and its
biology through ecology,

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but the Earth is more
complicated than that.

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The atmosphere, the oceans,
the biosphere, the cryosphere

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are all coupled with
complicated feedback mechanisms,

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governing their
interactions.

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The Earth is not simply
individual components.

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It is an integrated system

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that we need to
understand is a system,

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if we are to predict
the future of the Earth.

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In the late 1980s,

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NASA embraced the concept
of Earth system science

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by bringing to bear the
most important resource

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for studying the
earth as a system,

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the global perspective of Earth

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that is provided by
orbiting spacecraft.

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NASA undertook one of its
most important programs,

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the Mission to
the Planet Earth

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and the Earth
observing system

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with the Terra and the Aqua
and the Aura satellites

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as the principal
observatories

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for studying the
Earth as a system.

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Many satellites have been added
to this fleet of satellites

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observing the Earth

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and these satellites
are and will continue

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to provide comprehensive
observations

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from which we can understand the
earth and develop the models

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that allow us to
predict our future.

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In tonight's program,

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we are going to celebrate
what we have learned

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about the key components
of the Earth systems

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since we embarked upon
Mission to Planet Earth

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some three decades ago.

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But as we celebrate,
all that we have learned,

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we need to be aware that we
are in a race against time.

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The Earth is changing.

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Human civilization is
influencing the Earth.

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We need the best possible
scientific understanding

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of all the factors

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that will influence the
future of the planet

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so that we can make
wise policy decisions

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to protect and to
preserve this planet

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on which our
civilization depends

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and if need be adapt to
the changes that will come.

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We need to become

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and forevermore remain
wise stewards of creation.

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We begin this evening
with Gail Jackson;

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who will discuss the water cycle
that is essential for life.

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Then Lola Fatoyinbo will
talk about the carbon cycle

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which is driven
by many events

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including changing
forest covers

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and Thorsten Markus will
examine the key ice sheets

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of the Antarctic and Arctic

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and their role
in sea level rise

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and finally Piers Sellers will
wrap up with all the tasks

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that still lie before us.

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Gail!

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[Applause]

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Thank you!

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Our Earth is a
water planet

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from the oceans, ice,
rivers, lakes and aquifers

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to the water suspend
in our hydrosphere,

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our Earth is definitely
a water planet.

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Take a look at
our lovely Earth?

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Did you know that
99.5% of that water

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is stored in our salty seas

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or locked up in glaciers and
other inaccessible locations,

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leaving precious
little fresh water

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available to support
our life on Earth?

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So one of the vital signs of
our Earth is the water cycle

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and understanding it
and knowing it

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will help us to monitor
our freshwater resources

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and we can do this
by measuring

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where, how the water
moves within our planet

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and I will talk
about that today.

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This is a cartoon
of our water cycle.

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It shows the linkages
between the surface water,

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condensation, precipitation,
and evaporation.

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The water cycle is
a complex system

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that drives the
movement of water

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and actually heat and
energy around our planet;

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let's start by
exploring the role

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of our deep and vast
oceans in the water cycle.

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As you can see in this
visualization of satellite data,

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the ocean surface
temperatures are not uniform

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around the oceans.

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The warm water is in red
and the cool water is in blue;

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drive the movement
of water and heat

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throughout the oceans

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which can in turn then
influence our weather patterns

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such as might be saying during
El Niño and La Niña Years.

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Also, driving the movement of
water in our oceans is salinity.

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As shown in this visualization

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of Aquarius satellite
data from NASA

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where evaporation occurs,
our oceans get saltier,

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it's shown in red,

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where precipitation falls,
ice melts or rivers discharge

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our oceans get fresher
as shown in the blue.

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As your ocean water becomes
saltier it becomes more dense

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and settles down to the
bottom of the ocean

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and vice versa for
the less salty water

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which rises to the top.

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Taken together, surface
temperatures, salinity

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and also the ocean winds,
the winds above the ocean,

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combine in a complex stance

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that drives the ocean
circulation patterns

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as shown here.

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The oceans also store
massive amounts of heat

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and are very slow
to release it

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which makes them a major driver
in our Earth's climate system.

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The oceans and the atmosphere
actually work together.

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Without the oceans,
the water stays on surface

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and we need the
atmosphere as well.

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For example, intense
sunlight in the tropics

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causes evaporation
from the salty oceans

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and that water forms
in to massive clouds.

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Those massive clouds,

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that are moved by
the atmospheric winds

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to the mid-latitudes

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where precipitation occurs

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either in the form
of rain or snow.

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The only way to get
a global perspective

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of precipitation patterns

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is to measure from
spaceborne platforms.

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Six months ago NASA

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and the Japan Aerospace
Exploration Agency

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launched our joint

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Global Precipitation Measurement
Core Observatory Satellite

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or GPM for short.

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With two advanced instruments,

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the Core Observatory
for the first time

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is able to measure all
phases of precipitation

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from very, very heavy rain to
light rain to falling snow.

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The GPM spacecraft
serves as an anchor

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to a domestic and
international constellation

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of satellite partners,

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which collectively provide
precipitation estimates

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everywhere in the world
every three hours,

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in essence taking the pulse of
the planet's precipitation.

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This imagery shows one
of the very first events

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measured by the
GPM spacecraft.

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It was one of the late-season
falling snow events

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here in East Coast
on March 17.

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The resulting 7 inches of
snow in the Washington DC area

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may have affected your St.
Patrick's Day plans this year.

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Off the coast of
the Carolinas,

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the high cloud tops are icy,

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down at the surface
heavy rains shown in red

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fell in the
Atlantic Ocean.

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Further North, overland,

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the storm has much
lower cloud tops

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and they are composed
of snow shown in blue

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which fell at the surface

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and we can see
this information

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because the GPM spacecraft has
two advanced instruments;

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one of them which I like to call
the x-ray through the clouds

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measures the precipitation
all way through the cloud

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and provides what I would
call an x-ray at the surface.

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It's a two-dimensional
view of the precipitation.

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The other instrument on
board is what I like to call

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taking a CAT scan
of the clouds

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and it takes layer by
layer within the clouds

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information about
the precipitation

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that's vital for helping us
to understand precipitation

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and weather forecasting
and climate models.

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So we're very excited
about this data.

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Where else but NASA
with our partners,

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are we able to achieve such
success so early in the mission.

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GPM also uses this
data for applications

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to provide societal benefit.

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GPM observes hurricanes
and blizzards

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but as shown in the
top two panels here,

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we are also able to
look at the conditions

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that might lead to
landslides and floods.

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On the other hand for trial
and water availability maps

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as shown in the
bottom two images,

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we need to know how little
it has precipitated over time

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and GPM can tell us that too.

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Emergency management
then can use this data

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in near real time to
make evacuation plans.

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Precipitation in
the water cycle

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influences every person,
every day, everywhere,

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may be one of the greatest
impacts of NASA's data

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is just used in improving
weather forecasting models

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and climate change models

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for our everyday lives
and our long-term future.

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Now I would like
introduce Lola

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who is going to talk about the
pulse of our planet's biosphere.

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[Applause]

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The most visual manifestation
of life on earth

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happens every year
when springtime comes

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and fresh green leaves and
grasses appear all around us.

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The biosphere,
our living world

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is fueled by the
seasonal pulse of energy

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that the change
in season brings.

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In this visualization,

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we can see the seasonal
changes to plants on land

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and in the oceans.

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Using data like these,

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we can estimate agricultural
yield worldwide,

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predict famines, fires
and algae blooms

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or help with
land management.

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This global view of our
biosphere is also crucial

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for studying the flow of
carbon to the Earth system

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and predicting the rate
and effect of climate change

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on our home planet.

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In fact, the vegetation
on land and in the oceans

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are crucial component of
the global carbon cycle

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and climate change science.

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Plants are the real
lungs of the Earth,

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absorbing the carbon
dioxide from the atmosphere

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and producing the oxygen
that we breathe.

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Here we see what's call
net primary productivity;

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maps are aware and how
much carbon is taken up

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or released by plants
on a monthly basis.

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The colors are on
these maps indicate

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how fast carbon was taken in
for every square meter of land

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and you could see how
most of the change

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in carbon uptake and emissions

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happens in the
Northern Hemisphere

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where majority of the
land masses lie.

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Maps such as these,
allow a scientist

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to routinely monitor plant's
role in the global carbon cycle

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and monitor how they're
affecting and affected by

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or changing climate.

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Carbon is emitted into the
atmosphere from natural sources

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such as forest
clearing, decomposition,

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or volcanic activity.

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90% of the non-natural
emissions

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result from power production,
cement production

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and transportation.

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Over time 50% of that
carbon that's emitted

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stays in the atmosphere

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while 25% gets taken
up by trees and plants

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and the remaining 25% is
taken up by our oceans.

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And in fact, we can
measure the contribution

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in vegetation growth and
human's emissions on the carbon

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that is stored in the
atmosphere using satellite data.

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So this visualization
is a time series

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of the global distribution and
variation of carbon dioxide

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in the atmosphere

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as observed by NASA satellite
since the year 2000.

00:15:48.714.00:15:50.850
For comparison we've
overlaid a graph

00:15:50.850.00:15:53.352
of the seasonal and
inter-annual annual changed

00:15:53.352.00:15:54.754
increase of carbon dioxide

00:15:54.754.00:15:58.524
that was measured at the
Mauna Loa Observatory in Hawaii.

00:15:58.524.00:16:00.393
So these data sets show us

00:16:00.393.00:16:03.262
that the amount of carbon
dioxide stored in the atmosphere

00:16:03.262.00:16:04.931
is steadily increasing

00:16:04.931.00:16:08.134
as we continuously pump
carbon into the atmosphere

00:16:08.134.00:16:12.305
and decrease our forested
and vegetated areas.

00:16:12.305.00:16:14.040
And even though
we still see that

00:16:14.040.00:16:16.509
semi annual depth
in concentrations

00:16:16.509.00:16:19.278
with the growth of
vegetation in the springtime,

00:16:19.278.00:16:22.849
the increasing trend of
carbon dioxide concentrations

00:16:22.849.00:16:25.852
is leading to the warming
and changing of our planet.

00:16:30.289.00:16:32.258
The seasonal pulse
of vegetation growth

00:16:32.258.00:16:35.561
is crucial for the well-being
and balance of life on Earth.

00:16:35.561.00:16:38.097
This visualization of carbon
dioxide concentrations

00:16:38.097.00:16:39.065
in the atmosphere

00:16:39.065.00:16:42.068
shows how every springtime
when forests, grasslands

00:16:42.068.00:16:44.270
and agricultural
lands Green up

00:16:44.270.00:16:48.140
they suck up the carbon dioxide
contained in the atmosphere

00:16:48.140.00:16:49.242
through photosynthesis,

00:16:49.242.00:16:50.309
but in the winter months

00:16:50.309.00:16:52.445
that photosynthetic
uptake is not there

00:16:52.445.00:16:56.282
and the large amounts of carbon
dioxide stay in the atmosphere

00:16:56.282.00:17:00.219
and in fact data from satellite
sensors have shown us

00:17:00.219.00:17:03.189
that during the Northern
Hemisphere's growing season,

00:17:03.189.00:17:05.525
the Midwest region of
the United States

00:17:05.525.00:17:07.693
boasts more
photosynthetic activity

00:17:07.693.00:17:10.930
than anywhere
else on Earth.

00:17:10.930.00:17:12.965
But with changes in
the distribution

00:17:12.965.00:17:15.101
and type of land
cover on earth,

00:17:15.101.00:17:18.704
the natural cycle of growth
and carbon dioxide uptake

00:17:18.704.00:17:20.039
is being disturbed

00:17:20.039.00:17:22.642
and more and more carbon
dioxide is accumulating

00:17:22.642.00:17:24.110
in the atmosphere.

00:17:27.713.00:17:30.049
Forest fires are one
of the leading causes

00:17:30.049.00:17:34.387
of vegetation change and land
use change emissions globally,

00:17:34.387.00:17:38.724
but the cause of fires can be
both natural or human induced.

00:17:38.724.00:17:41.494
In Africa forest fires
are used to clear land

00:17:41.494.00:17:43.429
for agricultural activity

00:17:43.429.00:17:45.164
and the amount and
timing of fires

00:17:45.164.00:17:48.034
is clearly linked to
the seasonal changes

00:17:48.034.00:17:51.737
from healthy green
vegetation to dry grasses

00:17:51.737.00:17:54.006
leading to these
sweeping waves of fire

00:17:54.006.00:17:58.377
that move from south to north
and north to south each season.

00:17:58.377.00:18:00.479
As these areas are
getting hotter and drier

00:18:00.479.00:18:01.681
with climate change,

00:18:01.681.00:18:04.450
the intensity and amount
of fire increases

00:18:04.450.00:18:08.254
leading to even more clearing.

00:18:08.254.00:18:10.389
But our satellite sensors
don't just show us

00:18:10.389.00:18:14.060
the health and changes in
vegetation on large scales.

00:18:14.060.00:18:16.796
We can also monitor the
human impact on our planet

00:18:16.796.00:18:19.899
on the scale of the city
or our neighborhood.

00:18:19.899.00:18:23.636
So this image series shows
of the massive growth spurt

00:18:23.636.00:18:26.572
of Las Vegas since 1972.

00:18:26.572.00:18:29.608
Those large red areas are
actually green spaces

00:18:29.608.00:18:33.879
such as city parks
or golf courses

00:18:33.879.00:18:35.915
but now take a
look at Lake Mead

00:18:35.915.00:18:39.752
we can see how with the influx
of people into the area,

00:18:39.752.00:18:44.056
the water table is
steadily decreasing.

00:18:46.826.00:18:48.928
These images from
land really show us

00:18:48.928.00:18:52.264
how we humans have
changed our planet.

00:18:52.264.00:18:54.667
Here we see the impact
of mountaintop removal

00:18:54.667.00:18:56.068
in West Virginia

00:18:56.068.00:18:58.170
from 1984 to the present.

00:19:07.446.00:19:11.350
In Saudi Arabia we're able to
see how irrigation technology

00:19:11.350.00:19:14.053
has led to agriculture
expansion in deserts

00:19:14.053.00:19:17.990
but also to water table
depletion in nearby reservoirs.

00:19:22.828.00:19:24.030
All of these examples

00:19:24.030.00:19:27.433
are showing how we humans are
changing the look of the planet

00:19:27.433.00:19:31.437
and consequently significantly
affecting its vital science.

00:19:31.437.00:19:34.340
Our last example shows a recent
map of a forest cover loss

00:19:34.340.00:19:37.243
that is highlighted the
extensive changes happening

00:19:37.243.00:19:39.745
since just the year 2000.

00:19:39.745.00:19:42.314
These images show forest
clearing from wildfires

00:19:42.314.00:19:45.951
in Colorado from
2000 to 2012

00:19:45.951.00:19:50.356
fueled by record temperatures
and dry conditions.

00:19:50.356.00:19:52.858
In general, wildfires in
the Western United States

00:19:52.858.00:19:55.661
are increasing in
frequency and duration

00:19:55.661.00:19:59.198
due to higher temperatures
and longer growing seasons

00:19:59.198.00:20:03.602
and this has resulted in twice
as many acres burnt each year

00:20:03.602.00:20:05.738
compared to just 40 years ago.

00:20:06.939.00:20:10.142
These seasons are like the
heartbeat of the planet,

00:20:10.142.00:20:13.079
fueling the growth of
vegetation worldwide

00:20:13.079.00:20:15.181
and just as the seasons
can affect the health

00:20:15.181.00:20:16.715
of forested areas,

00:20:16.715.00:20:19.018
they're also affecting the
health of our ice caps

00:20:19.018.00:20:20.853
and glaciers

00:20:20.853.00:20:23.422
and on that note I would like
to thank you for listening

00:20:23.422.00:20:25.324
and introduce the
next speaker,

00:20:25.324.00:20:26.692
Dr. Thorsten Markus.

00:20:26.692.00:20:34.100
[Applause]

00:20:37.536.00:20:39.205
Good evening,
thank you Lola

00:20:39.205.00:20:42.775
and before I start I just
wanted to say that Lola

00:20:42.775.00:20:46.245
couple of years ago won the
Presidential Early Career Award

00:20:46.245.00:20:50.149
in Science and Engineering,
super honor, congratulations.

00:20:50.149.00:20:54.854
[Applause]

00:20:54.854.00:20:56.989
So anyhow yeah we so anyhow we
have good people that got it

00:20:56.989.00:20:59.058
and Katie, have you noticed?

00:20:59.058.00:21:03.362
So now, let's get to the
cool part of this evening.

00:21:03.362.00:21:09.201
The ice or we scientists call
it lovingly the cryosphere

00:21:09.201.00:21:12.404
or we use fancy words to
make it sound better.

00:21:12.404.00:21:14.540
Now the bad news for the ice,

00:21:14.540.00:21:17.042
the earth is getting warmer
and that's just a fact

00:21:17.042.00:21:18.611
and no matter what
you think about,

00:21:18.611.00:21:21.847
global change,
global warming etcetera,

00:21:21.847.00:21:23.282
it is getting warmer

00:21:23.282.00:21:27.186
and it's most pronounced
at polar latitude.

00:21:27.186.00:21:29.922
It's freshly
for the Arctic.

00:21:29.922.00:21:32.758
We had Goddard,
we have NASA I should say,

00:21:32.758.00:21:36.862
we like to include
JPL sometimes,

00:21:36.862.00:21:39.431
we had Goddard and JPL

00:21:39.431.00:21:41.534
a study of the Arctic
from the satellite.

00:21:41.534.00:21:43.202
It's a very hostile
environment;

00:21:43.202.00:21:45.804
it's only with
satellites that we have.

00:21:45.804.00:21:49.441
Now a data record of what's
going on in the Arctic

00:21:49.441.00:21:52.978
and the graph behind me,

00:21:52.978.00:21:58.817
you see the temple of
illusion of Arctic sea ice

00:21:58.817.00:21:59.919
during the summer.

00:21:59.919.00:22:04.557
In the early years of
microsatellite imagery

00:22:04.557.00:22:05.758
it was relatively stable

00:22:05.758.00:22:10.896
and scientist detected a slight
decrease and see it's extent.

00:22:10.896.00:22:13.966
But over the last year
this trend has increased,

00:22:13.966.00:22:16.402
the negative trend has
increased tremendously

00:22:16.402.00:22:18.771
and there is absolutely
no doubt anymore

00:22:18.771.00:22:19.939
but from any scientist

00:22:19.939.00:22:24.777
that the Arctic sea ice is
shrinking tremendously.

00:22:24.777.00:22:28.681
These trends are
statistically significant.

00:22:28.681.00:22:30.749
To understand better
what's going on

00:22:30.749.00:22:33.619
we need to understand that
the ice, the Arctic sea ice,

00:22:33.619.00:22:35.354
it's completely different

00:22:35.354.00:22:38.857
from the frozen lake
in your neighborhood.

00:22:38.857.00:22:41.760
It's a highly, very
highly dynamic system.

00:22:41.760.00:22:45.998
It moves around like a
pulsating living being

00:22:45.998.00:22:48.300
and you can see for example
west of Greenland

00:22:48.300.00:22:51.604
and especially east of
Greenland, these big streams,

00:22:51.604.00:22:55.441
gallons of thick ice, it is
leaving the Arctic system

00:22:55.441.00:22:58.911
and it's way more than
as I said a frozen lake.

00:22:58.911.00:23:01.947
There are constant
openings and closing

00:23:01.947.00:23:04.850
and these openings where
the heap from the ocean

00:23:04.850.00:23:06.585
is getting into
the atmosphere.

00:23:06.585.00:23:08.354
It's a very
complex system,

00:23:08.354.00:23:10.656
it's very beautiful
too I have to say

00:23:10.656.00:23:14.460
and this is why it is so
completed to predictions

00:23:14.460.00:23:15.928
and if actually I
could do prediction

00:23:15.928.00:23:17.663
I would become
a stock broker.

00:23:20.099.00:23:24.303
So if the ice is
shrinking and thinning,

00:23:24.303.00:23:26.438
it's more subjective

00:23:26.438.00:23:30.442
to changes in the atmosphere
and oceanic conditions.

00:23:30.442.00:23:34.380
The record minimum
we observed in 2012

00:23:34.380.00:23:36.615
is largely driven
by the storm

00:23:36.615.00:23:38.217
that developed
over the arctic

00:23:38.217.00:23:42.521
that moved a lot of ice
out of the Arctic ocean

00:23:42.521.00:23:44.923
and so we are seeing
these interactions

00:23:44.923.00:23:48.994
between ocean atmosphere
and ice more dramatically

00:23:48.994.00:23:50.296
than we have
seen in the past

00:23:50.296.00:23:53.032
when we had a more
consolidated pack of ice pack.

00:23:55.234.00:23:58.871
So we see these drastic
changes in the Arctic,

00:23:58.871.00:24:00.940
on the other side you
see the Antarctic

00:24:00.940.00:24:03.275
and people notice hey,
what's going on,

00:24:03.275.00:24:04.743
the Arctic is changing,

00:24:04.743.00:24:06.812
the Antarctic is not
changing as much.

00:24:06.812.00:24:07.846
As a matter of fact

00:24:07.846.00:24:10.382
we see a slight increase
in the Antarctic.

00:24:10.382.00:24:13.218
The reason is these are
completely different...

00:24:13.218.00:24:15.754
completely different
climate systems.

00:24:15.754.00:24:18.357
For example, just
to say one example,

00:24:18.357.00:24:21.060
in the Arctic, at the
North Pole we have ocean

00:24:21.060.00:24:23.796
which is surrounded by land.

00:24:23.796.00:24:25.864
So the opposite is true,

00:24:25.864.00:24:28.267
in the southern hemisphere
we have land mass

00:24:28.267.00:24:30.502
which is surrounded by ocean

00:24:30.502.00:24:35.341
and talking about land masses
similar to the sea ice,

00:24:35.341.00:24:37.543
the ice sheets are
dynamic as well.

00:24:37.543.00:24:40.412
Again it's not just
a stable ice sheet.

00:24:40.412.00:24:43.215
The way ice sheets
work is it's snows,

00:24:43.215.00:24:48.387
it's a center of the ice sheet
Antarctica or Greenland

00:24:48.387.00:24:52.124
and this ice is slowly
moving towards the edges

00:24:52.124.00:24:55.494
of the continent and
breaks off as icebergs

00:24:55.494.00:24:57.363
and if the system
is imbalanced,

00:24:57.363.00:25:01.200
the mass of snow equals
the mass of the ice blocks

00:25:01.200.00:25:04.336
that are breaking of.

00:25:04.336.00:25:08.540
In addition to this though,
we have seen increased melt,

00:25:08.540.00:25:12.544
we had a record melt in
Greenland a year or two ago,

00:25:12.544.00:25:15.114
and in addition
to melt itself

00:25:15.114.00:25:19.084
we know that some of the melt
waters accumulate as ponds

00:25:19.084.00:25:20.152
on top of the ice,

00:25:20.152.00:25:22.254
can drain to the
bottom of the ocean...

00:25:22.254.00:25:23.822
to the bottom
of the ice sheet

00:25:23.822.00:25:25.290
and lubricate the interface

00:25:25.290.00:25:28.093
between the ice sheet
and the bedrock,

00:25:28.093.00:25:32.564
causing an extreme acceleration
of glacier flow.

00:25:32.564.00:25:35.267
Some of the glaciers
especially around Greenland

00:25:35.267.00:25:38.437
accelerated for
more than 100%.

00:25:38.437.00:25:39.405
We have satellites

00:25:39.405.00:25:42.341
that can actually directly
measure the mass

00:25:42.341.00:25:43.609
of the ice sheets.

00:25:43.609.00:25:44.810
One of the coolest concept,

00:25:44.810.00:25:47.346
I mean as a physicist I think
it's a really cool concept,

00:25:47.346.00:25:48.647
it's Grace,

00:25:48.647.00:25:50.883
and Grace does not look
upwards or downwards,

00:25:50.883.00:25:53.318
it actually just
measures the distance

00:25:53.318.00:25:55.954
between itself,
between the two satellites

00:25:55.954.00:26:00.225
and that was a precision with
less of the width of a hair.

00:26:01.493.00:26:05.798
The first satellite goes
over a field of high gravity

00:26:05.798.00:26:07.499
is accelerated
ever so slightly

00:26:07.499.00:26:09.701
and the distance between
the satellites increases

00:26:09.701.00:26:15.674
until the second satellite is
over the same gravity hill

00:26:15.674.00:26:18.143
and the distance
becomes equal.

00:26:18.143.00:26:20.546
So using results from Grace,

00:26:20.546.00:26:24.483
we can actually
determine directly

00:26:24.483.00:26:25.851
the mass of the ice sheets

00:26:25.851.00:26:27.853
and if you look
at the time series

00:26:27.853.00:26:30.522
derived from Grace
over Greenland,

00:26:30.522.00:26:34.460
we can see we have tremendous,
tremendous losses.

00:26:34.460.00:26:35.994
We are losing right now

00:26:38.697.00:26:43.435
about 200 gigatonnes of ice
every year, every year,

00:26:43.435.00:26:47.172
so I can, to provide an analogy,

00:26:47.172.00:26:50.742
it is a kilometer, by kilometer,
by a kilometer of ice

00:26:50.742.00:26:52.144
is one gigatonne,

00:26:52.144.00:26:55.514
or 200 gigatonnes, I did
some math on my way out here,

00:26:55.514.00:26:57.549
200 gigatonnes of ice

00:26:57.549.00:26:59.651
would cover the
State of California roughly,

00:26:59.651.00:27:00.819
with half a meter.

00:27:00.819.00:27:06.391
So, we can add, half a meter
every year for California.

00:27:06.391.00:27:08.494
If we [inaudible] we
would still be hearing,

00:27:08.494.00:27:12.164
it is almost equal to
area in particular,

00:27:12.164.00:27:15.934
close to the area of Florida.

00:27:15.934.00:27:20.839
So and then we launched
ICESat-1 in 2003,

00:27:20.839.00:27:23.575
this was a first laser
alternator that surrounded earth

00:27:23.575.00:27:26.512
and we got a much
better view in terms of

00:27:26.512.00:27:29.815
how is elevation changing around
Greenland, around Antarctica

00:27:29.815.00:27:33.552
and it provided the first
measurement of Antarctica

00:27:33.552.00:27:35.420
as well as the
Arctic sea ice.

00:27:35.420.00:27:37.055
Before then, we were
very pretty much blind

00:27:37.055.00:27:41.360
of the third dimension of the
ice sheets and the sea ice.

00:27:41.360.00:27:45.998
So it was a real cool
mission and very NASA, I think.

00:27:45.998.00:27:49.434
ICESat-1 ended in 2009

00:27:49.434.00:27:52.404
and after that we
started a campaign

00:27:52.404.00:27:54.740
called operation IceBridge.

00:27:54.740.00:28:00.412
The scientist, and fortunately,
headquarters as well,

00:28:00.412.00:28:03.515
realized we cannot afford
to be completely blind

00:28:03.515.00:28:07.986
to the fast changing conditions
in the climate regions.

00:28:07.986.00:28:11.056
So we are flying
twice a year,

00:28:11.056.00:28:15.627
over the key regions in the
Arctic as well in the Antarctic,

00:28:15.627.00:28:18.030
and instead of
showing more data,

00:28:18.030.00:28:20.766
I thought let's look just
at some of the pictures

00:28:20.766.00:28:22.701
because I had the honor

00:28:22.701.00:28:25.170
and the privilege of flying
on some of these missions.

00:28:25.170.00:28:26.838
It is just phenomenal
flying over,

00:28:26.838.00:28:29.007
it's 1500 feet, 500 meters,

00:28:29.007.00:28:32.844
it is really close flying over
the ice sheets and sea ice.

00:28:32.844.00:28:34.313
You fly over glacier

00:28:34.313.00:28:36.648
and you have mountains
left and right.

00:28:36.648.00:28:39.851
In addition to lay, we have
radars that penetrate the ice,

00:28:39.851.00:28:43.088
so we can actually measure
the ice thickness as well,

00:28:43.088.00:28:45.557
and then of course,

00:28:45.557.00:28:51.897
with all the objectivity of
a project scientist, in 2017,

00:28:51.897.00:28:53.765
we launched ICESat-2,

00:28:53.765.00:28:57.102
which is so cool
and so phenomenal,

00:28:57.102.00:29:00.339
and this is NASA at
its best in my opinion,

00:29:00.339.00:29:03.442
because it is ground
breaking technology

00:29:03.442.00:29:05.243
and ground breaking science.

00:29:05.243.00:29:10.315
With ICESat-1, we measured
the earth every 150 meter,

00:29:10.315.00:29:12.084
roughly, if you
think about football,

00:29:12.084.00:29:16.321
football seasons are started,
basically in the end zones.

00:29:16.321.00:29:20.792
With ICESat-2, we measure
with centimeter precision,

00:29:20.792.00:29:23.929
every odd line,
which is really cool.

00:29:23.929.00:29:27.633
And it will be a really
discovery mission,

00:29:27.633.00:29:29.968
and in addition to
monitoring the ice sheets,

00:29:29.968.00:29:32.270
we will monitor the
height of trees,

00:29:32.270.00:29:34.706
changes in the land,
maybe tectonics,

00:29:34.706.00:29:36.908
height of the
oceans etcetera.

00:29:36.908.00:29:39.111
It will be a real
discovery mission,

00:29:39.111.00:29:42.914
I am very, very excited about
it, and worked very hard.

00:29:42.914.00:29:46.585
When I was a young scientist,
this is my last slide,

00:29:46.585.00:29:47.619
just ten years ago,

00:29:47.619.00:29:50.255
I went to Antarctica to
measure sea ice thickness.

00:29:50.255.00:29:53.792
This was then ten years ago,
before ICESat-2 launched,

00:29:53.792.00:29:57.262
the only way we could
measure sea ice thickness,

00:29:57.262.00:29:58.764
it was no other means.

00:29:58.764.00:30:03.702
We went there and drilled lots
and lots and lots of holes.

00:30:03.702.00:30:04.836
It was quite fun of course

00:30:04.836.00:30:08.740
and we do had some
visitors as well,

00:30:08.740.00:30:10.876
as you could see at the top,
what is it from your side,

00:30:10.876.00:30:12.411
top left,

00:30:12.411.00:30:15.614
isn't it amazing to just come
out and look what we are doing?

00:30:17.582.00:30:21.687
So, I think NASA does
really cool stuff

00:30:21.687.00:30:22.921
for cryosphere scientists

00:30:22.921.00:30:25.524
and we have come a long
way since ten years ago,

00:30:25.524.00:30:30.128
when I went down there to
take measurements of the ice

00:30:30.128.00:30:32.898
and with this, I want to give
the microphone to Piers Sellers

00:30:32.898.00:30:34.566
form NASA and my boss.

00:30:34.566.00:30:42.741
[Applause]

00:30:42.741.00:30:43.875
Thanks.

00:30:45.310.00:30:48.046
So I have to treat Thorsten
with a lot of respect

00:30:48.046.00:30:51.650
because he reminds me of Arnnie
Schwarzenegger with a PhD,

00:30:53.351.00:30:55.387
I don't want to get
on wrong side of him.

00:30:55.387.00:30:58.790
So, okay, the
view from orbit

00:30:58.790.00:31:00.692
really does put
things in perspective

00:31:00.692.00:31:03.495
and as Senator Nelson has
seen this with his own eyes,

00:31:03.495.00:31:05.263
so he knows what
I am talking about,

00:31:05.263.00:31:07.499
I have enjoyed
seeing the earth too

00:31:07.499.00:31:11.036
with my own eyes through
a space supervisor,

00:31:11.036.00:31:12.003
and I am absolutely
fascinated

00:31:12.003.00:31:14.806
by what a satellite
instruments can tell us.

00:31:14.806.00:31:17.342
We, that's NASA and all
our friends at NASA,

00:31:17.342.00:31:21.847
are quite literally conducting
a health check of the planet.

00:31:21.847.00:31:24.116
Okay, so these hands
on working scientists

00:31:24.116.00:31:26.284
have dazzled with
facts and data.

00:31:26.284.00:31:29.154
It's my job, as a
grizzled bureaucrat

00:31:29.154.00:31:31.123
to drag this event
over the finish line

00:31:31.123.00:31:32.090
and let you find your cars.

00:31:32.090.00:31:33.959
So I will try
and be quick.

00:31:33.959.00:31:37.129
So here are a few
closing thoughts.

00:31:37.129.00:31:41.166
What all of this means for
science, for policy makers

00:31:41.166.00:31:44.903
and for the cruise spaceship,
that's all of us.

00:31:44.903.00:31:49.307
Okay, this movie shows
you what happens

00:31:49.307.00:31:51.977
when we combine the satellite
data with computer models

00:31:51.977.00:31:53.645
and use a lot of physics

00:31:53.645.00:31:56.381
to fill in the gaps
between observations.

00:31:56.381.00:31:58.517
Here we are on the space,
this is not a snow storm,

00:31:58.517.00:32:00.952
these are solar particles
blasting by the earth

00:32:00.952.00:32:03.288
but we are protected
by magnetic field.

00:32:03.288.00:32:05.290
So the particles
are diverted.

00:32:05.290.00:32:06.958
As we come down deeper,

00:32:06.958.00:32:08.660
and by the way
this is a model

00:32:08.660.00:32:10.562
based on physics
and observations

00:32:10.562.00:32:12.731
so there is fact
and mathematics,

00:32:12.731.00:32:14.533
Isaac Newton is
not at work here,

00:32:14.533.00:32:16.301
here is the
atmospheric flows,

00:32:16.301.00:32:18.370
again produced by a model,

00:32:18.370.00:32:23.074
circulation timescales
here are on hours to days,

00:32:23.074.00:32:25.777
so we come a little bit
deeper in to the world,

00:32:25.777.00:32:27.479
We see the surface winds.

00:32:27.479.00:32:31.016
Now we are looking at the
surface, ocean circulation.

00:32:31.016.00:32:34.252
Ms. Gail said that's forced
by heat, wind and salinity,

00:32:34.252.00:32:37.289
timescales of days
and months and years.

00:32:37.289.00:32:40.058
Deep yet, and now I will
talk with the French accent

00:32:40.058.00:32:41.359
like Jack Gustav,

00:32:41.359.00:32:45.897
the sub surface flows down to
the deep ocean circulation,

00:32:45.897.00:32:50.135
timescales of a
thousand years or more.

00:32:50.135.00:32:51.269
It's beautiful

00:32:51.269.00:32:53.939
and we get all of this for
combining the satellite data

00:32:53.939.00:32:55.774
with what we understand
about nature

00:32:55.774.00:32:58.543
and putting it
in to a computer.

00:32:58.543.00:33:01.112
This stuff is based
on actual reality.

00:33:01.112.00:33:02.881
Not the Kardashian kind,

00:33:02.881.00:33:05.784
but let's get back to
think about climate.

00:33:05.784.00:33:07.953
So here is a computer
model simulation

00:33:07.953.00:33:09.321
of the earth's
climate system,

00:33:09.321.00:33:11.990
this is not a picture,
this is a simulation.

00:33:11.990.00:33:14.793
It's a toy world
based on physics

00:33:14.793.00:33:16.928
and propelled by
satellite data.

00:33:16.928.00:33:18.797
I just want you to look
at the detail here,

00:33:18.797.00:33:22.334
the popcorn clouds, the winds,

00:33:22.334.00:33:25.370
or the planetary scale
waves in the atmosphere.

00:33:25.370.00:33:29.374
The snow, the ice,
the biosphere,

00:33:29.374.00:33:30.375
it's all right there.

00:33:30.375.00:33:31.810
It's all being calculated

00:33:31.810.00:33:34.379
and it's all being
faithfully reproduced.

00:33:34.379.00:33:36.581
Now what is this
all good for?

00:33:36.581.00:33:38.717
Well, models have
got to the point

00:33:38.717.00:33:42.787
of providing weather prediction
up to 72 hours reliably.

00:33:42.787.00:33:47.125
You can quite literally
bank on it, most days.

00:33:47.125.00:33:48.894
This is going to be
Hurricane Sandy,

00:33:48.894.00:33:51.329
this is actually a model
prediction of Sandy

00:33:51.329.00:33:52.597
and as you could
see the Hurricane

00:33:52.597.00:33:55.600
wandered around the Atlantic
before turning sharply left

00:33:55.600.00:33:59.037
and whacking New Jersey
and New York.

00:33:59.037.00:34:03.041
But accurate warnings were
given out 72 hours ahead of time

00:34:03.041.00:34:05.710
and many lives and a
lot of money was saved

00:34:05.710.00:34:07.445
as a result of
these warnings.

00:34:07.445.00:34:09.648
By the way, speaking for us,

00:34:09.648.00:34:10.982
that's not counting
all the people

00:34:10.982.00:34:12.017
up and down the East Coast

00:34:12.017.00:34:14.152
who did not have to evacuate,

00:34:14.152.00:34:15.387
because they knew
the Hurricane

00:34:15.387.00:34:16.788
was going to miss
them all together,

00:34:16.788.00:34:19.257
and hat counts for something.

00:34:19.257.00:34:20.759
Now the exact same physics

00:34:20.759.00:34:22.327
and many of the
same observations

00:34:22.327.00:34:23.528
that we use for weather

00:34:23.528.00:34:26.464
are helping us to
understand climate better.

00:34:26.464.00:34:29.334
And these climate models allow
us to peer in to the future

00:34:29.334.00:34:31.136
and will help us
make decisions about

00:34:31.136.00:34:34.306
energy, water and
food resources.

00:34:36.074.00:34:37.175
Okay, this is a simulation

00:34:37.175.00:34:41.279
of what we think the earth will
look like in 20 to 30 years.

00:34:41.279.00:34:42.747
Actually it's not.

00:34:42.747.00:34:44.249
It's the picture of the sun,

00:34:44.249.00:34:46.785
it's being taken by our
heliophysical friends

00:34:46.785.00:34:48.486
using their satellites.

00:34:48.486.00:34:50.488
Besides being a
really cool image,

00:34:50.488.00:34:52.757
it shows that we are keeping
a close eye on the sun,

00:34:52.757.00:34:54.993
again using satellites
and guess what,

00:34:54.993.00:34:57.829
we have found the
sun to be not guilty

00:34:57.829.00:34:59.431
for the recent warming trend.

00:35:00.398.00:35:02.033
Now as I said we use
the same exact physics

00:35:02.033.00:35:03.335
and many of the
same satellite data

00:35:03.335.00:35:04.769
to be used in weather models

00:35:04.769.00:35:07.772
to build and test
our climate models.

00:35:07.772.00:35:10.675
Now what these
models do tell us

00:35:10.675.00:35:13.678
is that rate of warming
depends very largely

00:35:13.678.00:35:15.447
on how much
fossil fuel we use

00:35:15.447.00:35:19.718
and how much carbon dioxide
we put in the atmosphere.

00:35:19.718.00:35:22.420
I am now going to
show you a graph

00:35:22.420.00:35:24.956
and it is very bad
form for even like this

00:35:24.956.00:35:26.458
but in compensation

00:35:26.458.00:35:29.594
it may be the most
expensive graph ever made

00:35:29.594.00:35:31.763
and that not because
of the colors.

00:35:31.763.00:35:33.999
This cost several
years of effort

00:35:33.999.00:35:37.202
by thousands of scientists
worldwide to put it gather

00:35:37.202.00:35:40.839
and it tell us something, we
didn't know until only recently.

00:35:40.839.00:35:45.043
It's something new and
something very, very simple.

00:35:45.043.00:35:48.279
What it says is that the
expected rise in temperature

00:35:48.279.00:35:51.016
is directly,
linearly related

00:35:51.016.00:35:53.885
to the amount of
fossil fuel we burn.

00:35:53.885.00:35:55.720
The X axis of the bottom

00:35:55.720.00:35:57.689
shows how much
fossil fuel we burn

00:35:57.689.00:35:59.791
which makes the
carbon dioxide

00:35:59.791.00:36:02.827
and the y-axis shows the
temperature increase

00:36:02.827.00:36:06.297
that results from
this extra Co2.

00:36:06.297.00:36:09.601
The zero point is roughly or
a bit left to the zero point

00:36:09.601.00:36:12.804
is roughly when fellow
in England in 1700

00:36:12.804.00:36:15.340
decided it was time to start
an industrial revolution

00:36:15.340.00:36:18.343
and dug up the
first pit of coal.

00:36:18.343.00:36:21.579
Now, if you look at the
black line that ends at 2010,

00:36:21.579.00:36:22.814
you'll see that
we burned about

00:36:22.814.00:36:25.583
500 gigatonnes of
carbon since then

00:36:25.583.00:36:28.253
and a gigatonne of
carbon is a brick of coal

00:36:28.253.00:36:29.587
about a kilometer on the site

00:36:29.587.00:36:31.656
so it is a big
piece of coal

00:36:31.656.00:36:36.061
and that's give us about
1°C rise in global temperature

00:36:36.061.00:36:37.629
which is what we have seen

00:36:37.629.00:36:39.831
and that's led to some
changes in the world

00:36:39.831.00:36:43.168
that my good friend
I've just shown you.

00:36:43.168.00:36:46.171
Now we likely to
burn 1000 gigatonnes,

00:36:46.171.00:36:47.705
that's halfway up the graph,

00:36:47.705.00:36:49.741
that will give us
two degree centigrade

00:36:49.741.00:36:54.679
to two and half centigrade
increase in global temperature.

00:36:54.679.00:36:58.750
We definitely don't want to be
up in the top right-hand corner,

00:36:58.750.00:37:00.051
four degree centigrade.

00:37:00.051.00:37:01.586
This look like a very
different planet

00:37:01.586.00:37:03.922
than the current
one that we inhabit

00:37:03.922.00:37:07.225
and we don't really know what
that planet would look like,

00:37:07.225.00:37:09.294
how it would work,

00:37:09.294.00:37:11.262
so this is sobering

00:37:11.262.00:37:15.266
but is it necessary going to be
grim and nasty to the maximum?

00:37:15.266.00:37:19.104
Is this evening going to
be a total down if you all

00:37:19.104.00:37:21.539
if we don't count
the refreshments?

00:37:21.539.00:37:26.311
I think not and there is
some basis for my optimism.

00:37:26.311.00:37:27.679
Here is a picture
of the ozone hole

00:37:27.679.00:37:29.781
that was discovered in 1979.

00:37:29.781.00:37:30.782
The blue color

00:37:30.782.00:37:33.885
shows that ozone is being
eaten up by manmade chemicals,

00:37:33.885.00:37:35.453
many refrigerants.

00:37:35.453.00:37:40.091
We saw the hole growing
rapidly in the 80s and 90s

00:37:40.091.00:37:41.426
and this was bad news

00:37:41.426.00:37:43.895
because ozone protects
most of life on Earth

00:37:43.895.00:37:46.598
from strong ultraviolet
radiation from the sun

00:37:46.598.00:37:48.566
and that's bad for you.

00:37:48.566.00:37:51.736
But here is the good
part of the story.

00:37:51.736.00:37:55.206
Governments all around the world
took information seriously.

00:37:55.206.00:37:57.542
Here is a UN meeting where
they are discussing the problem

00:37:57.542.00:37:59.077
on what to do about it.

00:37:59.077.00:38:02.580
It modeled on
Goddard seminar.

00:38:02.580.00:38:05.483
Here are all the agreements
that they cranked out

00:38:05.483.00:38:09.320
to reduce the chemicals
that cause the problem

00:38:09.320.00:38:11.756
and here is two of
Goddard's finest scientists

00:38:11.756.00:38:13.224
in the back row

00:38:13.224.00:38:17.495
providing solid science
advice and eating chips,

00:38:17.495.00:38:18.596
there they are.

00:38:24.602.00:38:26.804
Here is a picture
of two worlds;

00:38:26.804.00:38:29.808
on the left is world
that we are likely to see

00:38:29.808.00:38:31.810
with the ozone
depletion leveling off

00:38:31.810.00:38:34.012
and then slowly reversing

00:38:34.012.00:38:35.713
and on the right is
what would have happened

00:38:35.713.00:38:38.416
if we didn't have a loose
controls and agreements

00:38:38.416.00:38:42.654
and blue here means no
ozone which is bad news.

00:38:42.654.00:38:45.323
On right-hand side is
the world we avoided.

00:38:45.323.00:38:47.325
That's the world
with thinning ozone,

00:38:47.325.00:38:49.260
a world with damage
to all living things

00:38:49.260.00:38:50.929
exposed to sunlight

00:38:50.929.00:38:53.665
and that includes the crops
that provide our food,

00:38:53.665.00:38:55.934
the ocean plankton
that makes our oxygen

00:38:55.934.00:38:58.937
and damage to us, people.

00:38:58.937.00:39:01.606
And now a news flash

00:39:01.606.00:39:06.177
today at four o'clock United
Nations released a statement.

00:39:06.177.00:39:09.414
It reads, the Earth's
protective ozone layer

00:39:09.414.00:39:13.651
is well track to recovery
in the next few decades

00:39:13.651.00:39:15.887
thanks concerted
international action against

00:39:15.887.00:39:17.989
ozone depleting substances

00:39:17.989.00:39:22.961
according to a new
assessment by 300 scientists.

00:39:22.961.00:39:25.597
So it can be done,

00:39:25.597.00:39:27.532
but this is
proof that people

00:39:27.532.00:39:30.168
and that's all of us and
our political preventives

00:39:30.168.00:39:34.205
can use solid information,
facts, models,

00:39:34.205.00:39:36.641
like every thing we
have seen tonight

00:39:36.641.00:39:38.910
to make the right decisions.

00:39:38.910.00:39:41.079
Now sometimes it
happens a bit later,

00:39:41.079.00:39:43.948
and it takes bit longer
than we would like

00:39:43.948.00:39:48.386
but generally the right
decisions get made.

00:39:48.386.00:39:52.190
Now there are a lot of
people on this planet.

00:39:54.125.00:39:57.862
This is Christmas 1968

00:39:57.862.00:40:02.133
3 billion people on Earth
and there they all are,

00:40:02.133.00:40:05.436
actually we
or some of us are,

00:40:05.436.00:40:08.606
minus three because somebody
has to take the photo.

00:40:10.775.00:40:15.847
Now here is a picture 2013 put
together from satellite data.

00:40:15.847.00:40:20.451
Now there are 7 billion
of us plus six on space

00:40:20.451.00:40:24.889
and we will top out at about
9 billions this century.

00:40:24.889.00:40:27.191
But again I think there is
reason for optimism here

00:40:27.191.00:40:31.829
because people are actually
path of the solution.

00:40:31.829.00:40:36.200
Every new human born is not just
an extra stress on the world

00:40:36.200.00:40:41.706
but brings with himself or
herself resources and answers.

00:40:41.706.00:40:43.708
This is an early
picture of Len Fisk.

00:40:46.277.00:40:47.412
So I think,

00:40:47.412.00:40:51.883
I hope that with the ingenuity,
the resourcefulness, the grit

00:40:51.883.00:40:54.252
that has got the
human race so far

00:40:54.252.00:40:58.122
we can use these vital signs
about the health of our planet

00:40:58.122.00:41:02.894
to figure out how to live long
and prosper on this Earth.

00:41:02.894.00:41:04.696
Now before I close up
I'd like to recognize

00:41:04.696.00:41:07.065
the great work done by
the visualization team,

00:41:07.065.00:41:08.733
Ali Ogden, Wade
Sisler, [Inaudible]

00:41:08.733.00:41:09.801
Horace Mitchell and friends

00:41:09.801.00:41:11.569
who put all these beautiful
pictures together

00:41:11.569.00:41:13.838
and of course a huge thank
you for all speakers

00:41:13.838.00:41:15.973
and sponsors so put your
hand together please.

00:41:15.973.00:41:19.544
[Applause]

00:41:19.544.00:41:25.249
[Music]

00:41:39.197.00:41:41.466
Humans have been
living alongside

00:41:41.466.00:41:42.867
migrating over,

00:41:42.867.00:41:44.068
frustrated by

00:41:44.068.00:41:46.437
and depending on
Arctic sea ice

00:41:46.437.00:41:48.673
for thousands of years,

00:41:48.673.00:41:51.642
but it was not until after
we have landed on the Moon

00:41:51.642.00:41:54.379
six times that we had
a reliable picture

00:41:54.379.00:41:55.980
of just how much
ice there was

00:41:55.980.00:41:57.882
and how much it changed

00:41:57.882.00:42:01.419
from season to season
and year to year.

00:42:01.419.00:42:04.288
Perhaps the first scientific
account we have of Sea Ice

00:42:04.288.00:42:07.091
is from the Greek explorer
Pytheas of Massalia

00:42:07.091.00:42:08.860
who sailed north
around England

00:42:08.860.00:42:11.029
and reported reaching
a frozen ocean

00:42:11.029.00:42:14.232
and long summer days
when the sun never set.

00:42:14.232.00:42:17.769
Pre-Inuit people lived
and migrated on the ice

00:42:17.769.00:42:20.972
and Vikings kept records
of sea ice observations

00:42:20.972.00:42:23.741
as they explored and
settled new lands.

00:42:23.741.00:42:27.311
Since then many Scandinavian
and Russian Pomor peoples

00:42:27.311.00:42:28.813
have lived
with sea ice

00:42:28.813.00:42:31.282
and Inuit culture has
been intimately tied

00:42:31.282.00:42:33.785
to the ice for
a thousand years.

00:42:33.785.00:42:36.020
In the great age
of exploration,

00:42:36.020.00:42:39.390
seafarers like Corte-Real
and Frobisher experienced

00:42:39.390.00:42:41.192
or reported by sea ice

00:42:41.192.00:42:43.828
as they searched for new
passages across the north

00:42:43.828.00:42:45.997
and riches to explore.

00:42:45.997.00:42:48.633
And map makers like
Mercator gave the sea ice

00:42:48.633.00:42:50.768
pack its first
rough outline.

00:42:50.768.00:42:53.738
In the 1700s,
Mikhail Lomonosov

00:42:53.738.00:42:57.041
distilled centuries of Russian
seafarer's observations

00:42:57.041.00:42:59.944
into a ground breaking
analysis of the Arctic.

00:42:59.944.00:43:03.147
More than a hundred years
later Fridtjof Nansen

00:43:03.147.00:43:05.883
intentionally frozen
ship into to the ice

00:43:05.883.00:43:07.785
and drifted for three years

00:43:07.785.00:43:11.756
confirming large-scale
circulation of seas.

00:43:11.756.00:43:17.061
In 1878, Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld
led the Vega Expedition

00:43:17.061.00:43:18.529
through the
northeast passage

00:43:18.529.00:43:22.333
and in 1906 Roald Amundsen
made the first transit

00:43:22.333.00:43:23.968
of the Northwest passage

00:43:23.968.00:43:28.039
sneaking through the ice
pack in a ship Gjøa.

00:43:28.039.00:43:31.476
In 1926, two days after
Richard Evelyn Byrd

00:43:31.476.00:43:33.778
attempted the pole
in a small aircraft,

00:43:33.778.00:43:36.380
the airship Norge
carried Amundsen

00:43:36.380.00:43:40.818
and his crew from Norway
over the pole to Alaska.

00:43:40.818.00:43:44.222
Soon after a slew of
scientific research camps

00:43:44.222.00:43:46.357
migrated on the
shifting ice

00:43:46.357.00:43:49.527
including 88 Soviet
stations logging more than

00:43:49.527.00:43:54.699
100.000 total miles of drift
and famous American T3 camp

00:43:54.699.00:43:56.534
on Fletcher's Ice Island

00:43:56.534.00:43:59.036
which was maintained
for 20 years.

00:43:59.036.00:44:03.975
In 1958, the USS Nautilus
travelled under the North Pole

00:44:03.975.00:44:08.045
and the entire ice cap beginning
a new era of submarine mapping

00:44:08.045.00:44:11.516
of the rugged
underside of the ice.

00:44:11.516.00:44:14.685
(This is Admiral and
this is the kind of ice

00:44:14.685.00:44:16.654
that the covers
the Arctic ocean,

00:44:16.654.00:44:19.156
the frozen barrier that
throughout history

00:44:19.156.00:44:21.259
has barred shipping
from a body of water

00:44:21.259.00:44:24.495
five times the size of
the Mediterranean Sea.

00:44:26.163.00:44:29.000
Only once, shortly after
the turn of the century,

00:44:29.000.00:44:32.803
has man reached the North
Pole by a surface route.

00:44:34.438.00:44:37.408
No ship has ever
reached the Pole,

00:44:37.408.00:44:38.976
even the most powerful
ice breakers

00:44:38.976.00:44:41.979
are helpless against
this frozen barrier.

00:45:06.771.00:45:10.241
After centuries of exploring
the Arctic from the ground,

00:45:10.241.00:45:11.876
sea and then by air

00:45:11.876.00:45:14.512
a revolution was
about to take place

00:45:14.512.00:45:16.714
thanks to our new
view from orbit.

00:45:18.516.00:45:20.484
With a space age
in full bloom,

00:45:20.484.00:45:22.820
the first satellite to
take regular images

00:45:22.820.00:45:25.256
of Arctic sea ice was
TIROS Weather Satellites.

00:45:25.256.00:45:27.358
Names the most complete
collection of instruments

00:45:27.358.00:45:30.528
ever assembled to study
the use of space vehicles

00:45:30.528.00:45:33.598
for comprehensive
weather observation,

00:45:33.598.00:45:36.567
the most important of these
being two vidicon cameras,

00:45:36.567.00:45:40.237
both record on this
magnetic tape machine

00:45:40.237.00:45:43.908
and on command send their
scannings back to Earth.

00:45:43.908.00:45:46.611
But the TIROS instruments
could not see through clouds

00:45:46.611.00:45:49.680
or during the long
polar night of winter.

00:45:49.680.00:45:52.883
Starting in 1967,
NASA began testing

00:45:52.883.00:45:54.785
more advanced
satellite instruments

00:45:54.785.00:45:57.388
onboard research aircraft
over the Arctic.

00:45:57.388.00:46:00.691
In 1972, a new satellite
called Nimbus-5

00:46:00.691.00:46:03.928
and it's ESMR instrument began
four years of all weather,

00:46:03.928.00:46:07.465
all season imagery
of sea ice

00:46:07.465.00:46:09.900
and in 1978 Nimbus-7

00:46:09.900.00:46:12.436
used its more advanced
microwave instrument

00:46:12.436.00:46:13.871
which could for
the first time

00:46:13.871.00:46:17.308
helped distinguish
young ice from old.

00:46:17.308.00:46:21.145
In 1983, the first atlas
of an Arctic sea ice

00:46:21.145.00:46:23.981
was published by NASA
Goddard researchers,

00:46:23.981.00:46:26.851
followed by an Arctic
atlas four years later.

00:46:26.851.00:46:28.319
Both were used
by scientists

00:46:28.319.00:46:30.821
and mariners
around the globe.

00:46:30.821.00:46:33.958
In the first few years of
continuous data collection,

00:46:33.958.00:46:36.994
researchers started to see
a slight decline in the ice

00:46:36.994.00:46:38.262
but they reported
the decrease

00:46:38.262.00:46:41.132
was still within the realm
of yearly variability

00:46:41.132.00:46:43.534
and not strong enough
to tie decisively

00:46:43.534.00:46:45.536
to a changing climate.

00:46:45.536.00:46:49.206
But in 1999, the trend
was becoming clear.

00:46:49.206.00:46:53.711
The Arctic was losing ice
cover at almost 3% per decade.

00:46:53.711.00:46:57.181
In 2002, NASA launched
the Aqua Satellite

00:46:57.181.00:46:59.050
with Japan's AMSR-E instrument

00:46:59.050.00:47:01.385
which provided even more
enhanced observations

00:47:01.385.00:47:04.188
of ice extent
and in 2003

00:47:04.188.00:47:07.525
NASA, launched ICESat which
had a Laser Altimeter

00:47:07.525.00:47:08.959
or onboard that
provided data

00:47:08.959.00:47:11.195
for producing maps
of ice thickness.

00:47:12.697.00:47:15.700
New record summer minimums
were reached in 99,

00:47:15.700.00:47:21.572
2002 and 2005 but in 2007
a shockingly large decline

00:47:21.572.00:47:24.442
stunned the research community
and scientists realized

00:47:24.442.00:47:26.077
they needed to get a
better handle on

00:47:26.077.00:47:28.312
not just the surface
area of the ice pack

00:47:28.312.00:47:30.915
but it's thickness as well.

00:47:32.249.00:47:35.219
New missions started to focus
on sea ice thickness data,

00:47:35.219.00:47:37.922
including an ongoing
NASA airborne campaign

00:47:37.922.00:47:39.724
called Operation IceBridge

00:47:39.724.00:47:43.861
and the European Space
Agency's CryoSat-2 Satellite.

00:47:43.861.00:47:47.031
In summer 2012, due in
part to even thinner ice

00:47:47.031.00:47:49.200
and a strong
Arctic cyclone;

00:47:49.200.00:47:51.869
yet another record
minimum was reached.

00:47:51.869.00:47:54.638
The last few years haven't
set any new records

00:47:54.638.00:47:56.941
but ice extent and volume
continued to be

00:47:56.941.00:47:59.143
well below the level
scientists first saw

00:47:59.143.00:48:01.979
when the satellite era began.

00:48:01.979.00:48:03.981
Computer models
predict Arctic sea ice

00:48:03.981.00:48:06.383
will continue to shrink
in coming years.

00:48:06.383.00:48:09.520
With new satellite
missions instruments near

00:48:09.520.00:48:12.256
and boots on the ground
researchers will continue

00:48:12.256.00:48:14.825
to study not only ice
cover and thickness

00:48:14.825.00:48:17.061
but also how
the loss of ice

00:48:17.061.00:48:18.662
will affect both the Arctic

00:48:18.662.00:48:21.732
and weather and climate
patterns worldwide.

00:48:40.551.00:48:44.421
As humans we are well aware
we need water to live.

00:48:44.421.00:48:47.258
Fortunately for us we
live on a water planet

00:48:47.258.00:48:49.894
but that doesn't mean we
have an entire global H2O

00:48:49.894.00:48:51.796
to use as we please.

00:48:54.031.00:48:57.968
So just how does the usable
water break down for us;

00:48:57.968.00:49:01.705
a giant 97% of Earth's
water is in the ocean

00:49:01.705.00:49:03.274
so we can't use that;

00:49:03.274.00:49:06.677
3% is freshwater but even
in that small sliver

00:49:06.677.00:49:11.315
about 2% is locked in glaciers,
ice caps and groundwater.

00:49:11.315.00:49:14.552
That leaves about 1% of
the fresh water on Earth

00:49:14.552.00:49:17.254
that is accessible
and usable by humans.

00:49:17.254.00:49:19.390
Let's imagine all of that
accessible freshwater

00:49:19.390.00:49:23.027
fits into this tiny pool now
we'll get to some small numbers

00:49:23.027.00:49:25.830
when we look at
global freshwater.

00:49:46.650.00:49:48.652
There really is a small
fraction of usable

00:49:48.652.00:49:51.422
and accessible freshwater
on this water planet

00:49:51.422.00:49:54.291
so how do we use
that tiny pool.

00:49:54.291.00:49:56.894
In the United States
about 49% is using

00:49:56.894.00:49:59.530
thermal electric
power production

00:49:59.530.00:50:03.367
while agricultural irrigation
makes up about 31%,

00:50:03.367.00:50:07.404
11% goes to public use
in our cities and towns,

00:50:07.404.00:50:10.608
4% goes into industry
and manufacturing

00:50:10.608.00:50:13.077
and 1% is domestic use.

00:50:13.077.00:50:15.679
The water coming out of
our faucets largely comes

00:50:15.679.00:50:17.848
from precipitation measuring

00:50:17.848.00:50:20.918
how much or how little
precipitation falls impact

00:50:20.918.00:50:23.087
how we live our daily lives.

00:50:23.087.00:50:25.556
Elsewhere, around the
globe in developing countries

00:50:25.556.00:50:27.224
agricultural
irrigation accounts

00:50:27.224.00:50:32.663
for about 70% of fresh water
use while industrial use is 20%

00:50:32.663.00:50:35.833
and 10% for
public consumption.

00:50:35.833.00:50:38.135
In places where access
to usable freshwater

00:50:38.135.00:50:39.570
is greatly limited knowing

00:50:39.570.00:50:41.772
when and where
precipitation may fall

00:50:41.772.00:50:44.341
is critical to life events.

00:50:44.341.00:50:47.444
Precipitation replenishes these
tiny reservoirs of fresh water

00:50:47.444.00:50:48.479
and data from the

00:50:48.479.00:50:50.447
Global Precipitation
Measurement Mission

00:50:50.447.00:50:51.615
will help farmers,

00:50:51.615.00:50:54.418
ranchers and policymakers
in these regions

00:50:54.418.00:50:56.220
plan for periods
of drought,

00:50:56.220.00:50:58.322
flooding and other
extreme weather.

00:50:58.322.00:51:05.296
[Music]

00:51:23.747.00:51:25.316
My name is Bryan Blair;

00:51:25.316.00:51:26.617
I am an Instrument
Scientist

00:51:26.617.00:51:28.152
and I am the Principal
Investigator

00:51:28.152.00:51:30.287
for the LVIS Sensor.

00:51:30.287.00:51:31.422
What's really
interesting about

00:51:31.422.00:51:32.723
being an instrument scientist

00:51:32.723.00:51:35.659
is it's not really a
precisely defined field

00:51:35.659.00:51:38.429
so essentially you
are trying to translate

00:51:38.429.00:51:41.398
scientific requirements in to
engineering requirements.

00:51:41.398.00:51:42.933
So it's a pretty
broad field,

00:51:42.933.00:51:44.969
there is a lot of
room for creativity,

00:51:44.969.00:51:46.503
it's really exciting.

00:51:46.503.00:51:48.539
So LVIS is a
high-altitude,

00:51:48.539.00:51:51.909
airborne laser mapping sensor
it's acronym stands for

00:51:51.909.00:51:54.778
the Land, Vegetation
and Ice Sensor.

00:51:54.778.00:51:56.547
It's designed to operate
at high altitudes

00:51:56.547.00:51:59.283
so we can map a much larger
area very quickly.

00:51:59.283.00:52:01.018
Because it can map
such a large area

00:52:01.018.00:52:03.988
we can look at landscape
scale processes.

00:52:03.988.00:52:08.692
So we may not look at
individual patch of vegetation

00:52:08.692.00:52:11.328
or a small feature
of the glacier.

00:52:11.328.00:52:13.998
We would map the
entire glacier system.

00:52:13.998.00:52:18.002
So in 2009, we flew to
the Antarctic Peninsula

00:52:18.002.00:52:19.703
and as we were
mapping with LVIS,

00:52:19.703.00:52:21.572
we were taking
high-resolution

00:52:21.572.00:52:23.507
camera imaging at
the same time.

00:52:23.507.00:52:25.209
So we took all
those images,

00:52:25.209.00:52:28.445
mosaic them together and
merge them with the LVIS data.

00:52:28.445.00:52:31.815
Now we have a product that
you can actually interact with

00:52:31.815.00:52:33.550
and see all the
different views.

00:52:33.550.00:52:35.119
You can go, walk
around places

00:52:35.119.00:52:37.121
that you could never
physically walk in around

00:52:37.121.00:52:38.489
because they are
too dangerous.

00:52:38.489.00:52:41.625
So when we developed that
it was with the intention

00:52:41.625.00:52:44.294
of giving scientists
the ability

00:52:44.294.00:52:46.630
to interact with
the topography data

00:52:46.630.00:52:47.731
in a way that
they never could,

00:52:47.731.00:52:50.467
just looking at it flatly
on a computer screen;

00:52:50.467.00:52:53.137
maybe they pick out a different
way to approach a problem

00:52:53.137.00:52:55.172
or it would inspire them

00:52:55.172.00:52:57.341
to do something
different with the data.

00:52:57.341.00:52:58.909
So where we are
getting to now,

00:52:58.909.00:53:01.245
we flew the LVIS sensor
that was developed

00:53:01.245.00:53:03.480
for this high altitude
journey the Global Hawk.

00:53:03.480.00:53:06.717
That can fly at 60,000
feet for up to 30 hours;

00:53:06.717.00:53:09.053
so we used to fly for 3
hours in some aircraft

00:53:09.053.00:53:11.088
now the Global Hawk
is 30 hours.

00:53:11.088.00:53:13.824
We used to have a few
hundred meters swath,

00:53:13.824.00:53:15.993
now we have 4
km wide swath.

00:53:15.993.00:53:18.128
But the other advantages
flying high

00:53:18.128.00:53:19.830
are that you burn less fuel;

00:53:19.830.00:53:21.231
you can fly faster

00:53:21.231.00:53:24.001
and you can fly a
much larger area.

00:53:24.001.00:53:25.769
Most scientists believe
that you can only get

00:53:25.769.00:53:28.038
small amount of
area from that.

00:53:28.038.00:53:30.774
As you bring in LVIS and
especially Global Hawk LVIS,

00:53:30.774.00:53:33.644
all of the sudden you burst
through that limitation,

00:53:33.644.00:53:36.213
you are mapping huge
amounts of areas

00:53:36.213.00:53:39.817
and what could have
taken 10 or 20 years

00:53:39.817.00:53:41.351
with some of the older sensors

00:53:41.351.00:53:44.254
now could be literally be
done in the single season.

00:53:44.254.00:53:46.890
You could almost map the
entire granulation

00:53:46.890.00:53:49.226
in a single season.

00:53:49.226.00:53:51.195
So everything that
we do with LVIS

00:53:51.195.00:53:53.897
whether its science application
development or algorithms

00:53:53.897.00:53:57.701
or technology prototyping
leads us to planetary mapping;

00:53:57.701.00:53:58.769
we want to
map the earth

00:53:58.769.00:54:00.370
because we want
to map everything

00:54:00.370.00:54:01.805
and we want to
do it often.

00:54:01.805.00:54:03.307
But we can also apply
this technology

00:54:03.307.00:54:05.042
to other planets as well.

00:54:25.462.00:54:28.966
Sometimes, the ozone
that causes this

00:54:30.467.00:54:33.103
comes from way up here,

00:54:33.103.00:54:35.305
yes there the stratosphere

00:54:35.305.00:54:37.774
where jet liners fly around.

00:54:37.774.00:54:40.844
Ozone in the stratosphere
typically stays up there

00:54:40.844.00:54:45.082
and protects us from UV
rays but sometimes

00:54:45.082.00:54:49.153
the gas travels into the lower
part of Earth's atmosphere.

00:54:49.153.00:54:52.022
Watch the way ozone
behaves here.

00:54:52.022.00:54:54.858
As a low pressure
system moves north-east

00:54:54.858.00:54:57.961
ozone rich air
descended downward,

00:54:57.961.00:54:59.496
winds took a hold of it

00:54:59.496.00:55:01.598
stretching it in
different directions

00:55:01.598.00:55:03.500
and bringing it all the
way to the ground

00:55:03.500.00:55:06.703
along Colorado's
Northern Front Range.

00:55:06.703.00:55:10.174
This is called a
stratosphere conrtusion.

00:55:10.174.00:55:13.577
The EPA says an acceptable
amount of ground-level ozone

00:55:13.577.00:55:16.013
is 75 parts
per billion.

00:55:16.013.00:55:18.215
In early April 2012,

00:55:18.215.00:55:20.817
that number went
beyond healthy levels.

00:55:20.817.00:55:22.619
When stratospheric
intrusions happen

00:55:22.619.00:55:25.222
they obviously increase
the ozone locally

00:55:25.222.00:55:26.590
by very large amounts

00:55:26.590.00:55:27.925
and you can go in
to exceedance

00:55:27.925.00:55:30.894
of these new limitations.

00:55:30.894.00:55:35.499
Going beyond 75 ppb not
only means more of this

00:55:35.499.00:55:38.035
it also means states
risk paying a fine.

00:55:38.035.00:55:40.604
So in order to qualify
for exemptions

00:55:40.604.00:55:43.574
the states need to be able to
prove that the high ozone levels

00:55:43.574.00:55:45.876
observed at the
surface did not happen

00:55:45.876.00:55:50.113
because of local pollution
emissions in that state.

00:55:50.113.00:55:51.882
The GEOS-5's ability
to represent

00:55:51.882.00:55:53.650
the stratospheric intrusions

00:55:53.650.00:55:55.519
and show how ozone
is transported

00:55:55.519.00:55:57.721
to the surface at certain
times will give them

00:55:57.721.00:56:00.824
a very quantitative way
of being able to do that.

00:56:00.824.00:56:04.228
GEOS-5 is a high-resolution
computer model

00:56:04.228.00:56:06.496
that can show us what's
happening to the winds,

00:56:06.496.00:56:10.767
temperatures and chemical
makeup of our atmosphere.

00:56:10.767.00:56:13.403
We will be able to use
GEOS-5 to estimate

00:56:13.403.00:56:18.609
how frequently we expect
to see such exceedances.

00:56:18.609.00:56:21.178
High-resolution modeling
can help us understand

00:56:21.178.00:56:23.013
how what's happening up here

00:56:23.013.00:56:25.916
can impact the air
quality down here

00:56:25.916.00:56:29.052
and why otherwise
crisp clear looking day

00:56:29.052.00:56:31.488
might not be the best
for a hike after all.

00:56:48.438.00:56:51.208
They seem like
works of art,

00:56:51.208.00:56:53.043
giants plume

00:56:53.043.00:56:57.848
amorphous shapes lost
in a sea of colors

00:56:57.848.00:56:59.816
but there is
nothing fun about them.

00:56:59.816.00:57:03.654
These are images taken
from space of this

00:57:05.722.00:57:07.357
and this.

00:57:07.357.00:57:11.228
Countless fires that
scarred out Earth this year

00:57:11.228.00:57:15.532
and with each giant smoke
plumes of carbon monoxide,

00:57:15.532.00:57:18.068
methane and carbon dioxide

00:57:18.068.00:57:21.138
carried up in to the atmosphere,

00:57:21.138.00:57:24.308
into the air we breathe.

00:57:24.308.00:57:27.644
The total number of acres
burned so far this year

00:57:27.644.00:57:30.714
nearly 2 and a half million;

00:57:32.282.00:57:34.685
how will the fire
frequency change in a world

00:57:34.685.00:57:37.020
where the climate
is getting warmer,

00:57:37.020.00:57:40.090
where dry places will
get even less rain,

00:57:41.425.00:57:44.328
climate projections show
that the drying trend

00:57:44.328.00:57:46.863
in the United States
will continue.

00:57:46.863.00:57:49.299
There will be a
greater risk of fire

00:57:49.299.00:57:51.335
by the end of the 21st Century

00:57:51.335.00:57:54.204
in places that aren't
prone to burning now,

00:57:54.204.00:57:57.140
like the great claims
in upper Midwest.

00:57:57.140.00:58:00.677
Areas like the Mountain West
burning frequently today

00:58:00.677.00:58:03.680
will see an even
greater number of fires

00:58:03.680.00:58:06.350
that means more
homes at risk;

00:58:06.350.00:58:09.486
more federal dollars
spent on rebuilding;

00:58:09.486.00:58:12.956
a greater risk to the
nation's food supply.

00:58:12.956.00:58:16.026
If we reduce our
greenhouse gas emissions,

00:58:16.026.00:58:18.562
can we mitigate
these risks?

00:58:18.562.00:58:23.967
Under a low carbon scenario
temperatures rise by 4.5°

00:58:23.967.00:58:26.436
but under a high
carbon scenario

00:58:26.436.00:58:31.074
temperatures rise by 8°.

00:58:31.074.00:58:33.777
Either way means
more fires,

00:58:33.777.00:58:36.079
but just as you would
expect higher temperatures

00:58:36.079.00:58:40.550
mean more burn scars like
this in more places.