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This seems like an unlikely place for fires.

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 In the winter the landscape is still.

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But the warmer months can bring conditions that, combined with fire,

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can release dangerous amounts of carbon into the atmosphere

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And in more ways than one.

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What happens in the Arctic does not stay in the Arctic anymore. 

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NASA Explorers

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Episode Three

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The Carbon Problem

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Fires

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I see that you’re wearing a hat with a logo on it.

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Can you describe what that is?

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You don't have to take your hat off!

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Well, that’s good.

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Kevin, in the orange jacket, is a close NASA collaborator.

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He and his team are used to getting their hands dirty to collect crucial fire data. 

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I’m wearing a hat right now, from the ABoVE field campaign

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And what you see is a big "A" 

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And it stands for trees tilting over with thawing permafrost 

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[laughing]

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Trees aren’t the only thing getting warped by thawing permafrost.

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Buildings and even roads begin to buckle 

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when the ground beneath them literally begins to liquify. 

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NASA’s ABoVE campaign is currently in the Northwest Territories

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to understand large scale changes to permafrost. 

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Permafrost is basically, picture in your mind, frozen dirt

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Now if you thaw the permafrost out, it changes from

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solid rock or concrete, to mud.

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If you watched Season One of NASA Explorers,

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then you know that permafrost stores huge amounts of carbon.

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As a matter of fact, twice as much as what’s currently in the atmosphere today. 

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Now, thankfully permafrost thaws really slowly 

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and therefore releases carbon really slowly. 

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But here’s where it gets complicated.

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Fires in high northern latitudes (permafrost regions)

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are getting larger, they're getting more frequent, getting more intense 

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In the past, permafrost has had a reliable layer of insulation

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- mostly moss.

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But if you have a fire,

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it burns off the vegetation. The insulation is, essentially, removed.

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To summarize, changing climate means more fires,

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more thawing, more carbon in the atmosphere

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and that accelerates warming.

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Permafrost is one of those important factors that affects life on Earth,

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yet it isn’t really in the public eye - unless you live on it. 

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But for Kevin, understanding this phenomenon is

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the best way to make the biggest difference.

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So way back in the 80s, when I was in college

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my mom got cancer. And was dying. 

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And I remember the last time I saw her,

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We were sitting down, and she was in bed, very sick.

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And she asked me what did I want to do.

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And until then, of course, I was a typical teenager in college 

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I had no clue.

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But then it crystalized in my mind that

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I wanted to save the planet.

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And that was the words that I used.

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I decided that my path for doing that was to go into spaceflight

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Save the planet by leaving it, I suppose.

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But then, circumstances changed and

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I started working on Earth observations.

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and it opened my eyes to what you can do with remote sensing and satellites

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And what you could see and learn about the Earth from looking at it from space

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That's why I decided to go back to school

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And I rethought of what I talked to my mom about

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and I decided to go back to school and become a scientist.

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The hours are long and the work is hard.

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But these explorers wouldn’t have it any other way.

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This is really, you know, tough country. It's really rugged.

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But it’s also very beautiful country.

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I think I can speak for nearly every scientist that I've worked with.

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They do this because they want to help.

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They want to provide the information and tools to solve problems.

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On the next episode of NASA Explorers

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NASA is a big and capable organization, 

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but Earth science is a subject far too big 

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for one country, one agency, to tackle all by itself.

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Episode Four: Chasing Clouds

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