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Chemistry.

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Biology.

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Physics.

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A NASA mission has gathered experts
in all three disciplines...and more....

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for an ambitious project
to study Earth's climate.

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It's called the North
Atlantic Aerosols and

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Marine Ecosystem Study.

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NASA calls it NAAMES.

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It's a complex mission with
a million moving parts,

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but there are three
big ones to note.

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First, there's the research vessel
Atlantis, a laboratory at sea.

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Then there's NASA's own C130
Hercules, a laboratory in the sky.

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And one more...but we'll get to
that. It's big hardware for sure,

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but the stars of the show, besides
a crackerjack team of scientists,

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are these guys: ...phytoplankton.

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In the north Atlantic there are
trillions, and springtime is when

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they bloom.

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Phytoplankton produce a gas
called dimethymsulfide, or DMS,

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and as that gas passes into the
atmosphere, it rapidly breaks down.

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The resulting sulfur compounds become
aerosols, microscopic particles

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in essence, and water
condenses around them.

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And you know what you get
when countless water droplets

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condense in the atmosphere?
Clouds.

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There's a startling connection:
phytoplankton affect cloud formation!

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But phytoplankton growth depends on
available carbon, and the warmer the

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temperatures of the ocean, the
less carbon that water can hold.

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Less carbon could restrict
phytoplankton growth, which

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in turn could affect
global cloud cover,

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among other things.

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When one part of the system changes,
everything shifts, and that's why NASA

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has teams out in the field,
studying how that system

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works from all sorts of angles.

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So what's the mission's
third big moving part?

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That would be The Agency's fleet
of spacecraft, currently in orbit

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gathering global information
24-7-365.

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Lessons learned from NAAMES
and related research will help

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experts develop the
next generation

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of spacecraft, some of which
are already on the drawing board.

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Most people know NASA for
its interplanetary adventures.

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But that high-flying know-how also
enables it to conduct some of the

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most important scientific research
right here, on the planet where

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you're watching this video.

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♪ music ♪