Our Living Planet From Space

Narration: Lauren Ward

Transcript:

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When you think of NASA you probably think of this

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But as soon as we made it beyond the limits of our atmosphere, one of the first things we did

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was turn our cameras around at look at this

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The first US satellite was launched in 1958.

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That’s eleven years before Neil Armstrong became the first person to walk on the moon.

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Explorer 1, built at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory,

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initiated a long legacy of satellites meant to take our understanding of Earth to new heights.

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In 1997, NASA launched a satellite that began a twenty-year continuous global record

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of the very thing that, as far as we know, makes Earth special: life.

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While most satellite missions capture data on the physical characteristics

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of our planet's climate and weather, others allow us to measure life itself.

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The result?

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The most complete view of global biology to date.

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The greatness of this data set is kind of hard to explain.

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It allowed me to understand the ocean in such an organic way.

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That’s the voice of oceanographer Dr. Ivona Cetinic.

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Dr. Ivona Cetinic. Ivona and the rest of the NASA Goddard Ocean Ecology Lab

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help oversee the twenty-year data set.

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If you take a closer look at this animation,

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you’ll see what looks like a repetitious ebb and flow on the land and surface of the ocean.

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We’re actually watching the planet breathe.

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About half of the total photosynthesis occurs on land and half in the oceans

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That’s Dr. Compton Tucker

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who pioneered satellite monitoring of vegetation on land.

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The spring and summer months kick off the growing season for plants on land

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illustrated in dark green

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and tiny microscopic plant-like organisms in the ocean called phytoplankton

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seen in light blue.

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They take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and use it for energy,

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causing the total amount of carbon in the air to drastically drop.

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The opposite is true during colder months.

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During winter in the Northern Hemisphere -- which is home to most of Earth's land plants

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carbon in the atmosphere increases, as plants go dormant.

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And then there are extremes zones in the ocean.

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Purple patches are nearly devoid of any phytoplankton – they’re basically deserts at sea

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while the red zones tell us that there’s either a high concentration of phytoplankton

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hugging the coastline or our satellite sensors are picking up

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on another input changing the color of the water.

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We have a marvelous biological diversity of plants and animals both on the land

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and also in the oceans.

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But hold on.

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If we have amazing biological diversity of plants and animals,

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why do scientists spend all their time observing plants?

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You know how they say you are what you eat?

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In the same way, if you want to understand life in the ocean

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you have to start from the base and that’s what phytoplankton is.

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If phytoplankton are changing then the whole ecosystem will change.

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The changes that Ivona is talking about are much easier to see

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when we can study a continuous global record.

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And that means not only being able to look into the past, but also into the future.

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It's this long-term data set that not only allows us to see exactly what's happening

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but to be able in so much better way to predict what's going to happen.

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A global perspective gives scientists the power to forecast events

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like harmful algal blooms, disease outbreaks and even famine.

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Maybe one of the most useful applications of the data

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is its ability to show us where we’ve been.

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In twenty years the planet has changed in noticeable ways

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and this data set gives us a visualization to prove it.

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Arctic greening coupled with retreating Arctic sea ice

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are probably one of the most well-known examples of this.

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If you look at the higher northern latitudes you see in the white where there’s snow

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and that then moves further north and recedes.

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It’s then followed by very, very green colors,

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because plants are really photosynthesizing in those dark green periods

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Scientists think there are likely trillions of planets

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yet Earth is still the only planet we know of with life.

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With that in mind,

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our habitable home world seems evermore fragile and beautiful

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when considering the vastness of unlivable space.

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I have several friends and acquaintances who are astronauts.

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They all say the same thing.

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When they’re in orbit on the space shuttle or in the International Space Station

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and they look down at the Earth, they see one climate, one planet.

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We’re all in this together,

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and we need to work together to make sure

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life as we know it continues on this wonderful planet.