NASA Models the Complex Chemistry of Earth's Atmosphere

Narration: Lesley Ott & Christoph Keller

Transcript:

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[Music]

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Ott: I think one of the things that's really

special about this visualization is that

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it's showing this new and really

complex part of our model, which is

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atmospheric chemistry.

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Keller: One of the issues, I think

with atmospheric chemistry, is that it's

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so complicated, and it changes so rapidly

on a short scale, we're not necessarily

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able to observe it all the time, everywhere.

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Ott: So that's where models come in.

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By merging models and satellite data,

we get a much fuller picture of what's

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going on throughout the atmosphere.

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We can see gases that we couldn't see with

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satellites alone.

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We can see the parts of the atmospheric column that we really

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need to know, like the nose-level

contributions of pollutants that we need

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to communicate to policymakers to

protect people's health.

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Keller: So what we are

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seeing is a visualization of the

composition of the atmosphere as it

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relates to air pollution.

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There are hundreds of chemicals that all

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contribute to those pollutants, and you

can see in this visualization, is really

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what the computer model does sort of like underneath.

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There are hundreds of

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chemicals, they all react with each other.

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It's a huge dating pool and all of the

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chemicals date each other all the time.

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Ott: So even though these chemicals, some of

them are present only at these very

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dilute concentrations, they're actually

quite important. So we have to really

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track all of these different molecules

to be able to get at those pieces that

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people really need - the pieces of

information that affect human health.

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Keller: We rely on computer models to gain

additional insights on where is it formed,

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where is it destroyed, what are the

mechanism in how it is formed, but also

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how can it be mitigated?

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Ott: There's all this interesting stuff going on all

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around us that were not necessarily

aware of, and so this simulation is

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really just trying to illustrate what's

going on with those gases, but by showing

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so many of them illustrate how complex

their interactions are and how many

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things are going on even if we're

not aware of them all the time.

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[Music]

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Ott: Ten years ago, we couldn't do anything

like this. So this is really a

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revolutionary type of approach to be

able to combine the satellite and the

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model, and the thing that impresses me

the most about visualizations like this

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is just that we can do it.

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Just that with all of this complexity, all of these

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kinds of things being transported the

atmosphere, that this actually works and

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when we compare it against observations,

it actually looks really really good in

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a lot of places.

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This is a really exciting new frontier for us.

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[Music]