WEBVTT FILE

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Hi, This is Trent Schindler from NASA's Scientific Visualization

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Studio. Ozone in the upper part of the atmosphere, the stratosphere,

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is a good thing – it absorbs ultraviolet radiation from the sun, which can cause skin cancer.

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But in the lower part of the atmosphere, the troposphere,

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ozone is a pollutant that can create respiratory problems.

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So monitoring tropospheric ozone is important for mitigating its

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effects. But sometimes, natural ozone from the stratosphere

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can make its way to the troposphere, confusing monitoring efforts.

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One of these events is what I’m visualizing here. In April

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2012. an area of fast-moving low pressure caused

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ozone-rich stratospheric air to descend,

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folding into tropospheric air near the ground. Winds pushed it in all directions,

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bringing stratospheric ozone to the ground in the Southwest. You can see

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this as a curtain of swirling air reaching to the ground in this visualization.

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The air is color-coded by altitude

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blue at 10 km, and red at sea level. Atmospheric

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scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md.,

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set out to see if the GEOS-5 Chemistry-Climate Model could

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replicate the intrusion at 25-kilometer resolution.

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Indeed, the model could replicate small-scale features, including finger-like

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filaments, within the apron of air that descended over Colorado.

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To communicate the implications of this result most effectively to

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non-scientists, we created a volumetric visualization that replaced

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numerical data with animation. By making visible events that

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would otherwise have remain invisible to those without expertise and training,

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the animation allows policymakers and the public to immediately

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comprehend the nature of the problem, and hopefully make more informed decisions

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in addressing it.