Model Behavior

Narration: Katie Jepson

Transcript:

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What you’re seeing here is a model,

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specifically of carbon dioxide moving through the atmosphere,

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driven by wind patterns and circulation.

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To create this model, billions of data points,

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informed by data collected from satellite and ground-based measurements,

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were run through powerful supercomputers to scale

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observed behavior to a global stage.

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What makes this model stand out is that it's super high resolution,

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128 times higher than a typical weather model

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and 500 times higher resolution than a typical climate model.

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This means we could focus on individual points like power plants and forest fires,

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and see, in extreme detail, how these plumes move and get mixed in the atmosphere.

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Now, why is this important?

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Because by creating these high resolution models,

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NASA scientists are able to better understand the behavior of Earth's interconnected systems,

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like how plumes of CO2 interact

and spread with weather systems.

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For instance, you can clearly see the impact

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the day-night cycles have on CO2 emissions.

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This is due to daily fluctuations in human activities,

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cycles of photosynthesis, and fires flaring up and dying down.

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Our ability to run such a simulation

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allows us to see how individual data points influence the larger picture.