WEBVTT FILE

1
00:00:01.900 --> 00:00:05.560
I’m Alex Kekesi. I’m the data visualizer with

2
00:00:05.580 --> 00:00:08.900
the NASA Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio.

3
00:00:08.900 --> 00:00:13.600
I’m Compton Tucker and my responsibility in this is the interpretation

4
00:00:13.620 --> 00:00:14.920
of what’s happening on land.

5
00:00:15.700 --> 00:00:18.980
And I’m Gene Feldman, I’m an oceanographer at NASA Goddard

6
00:00:19.460 --> 00:00:21.880
and I'm responsible for everything wet.

7
00:00:22.840 --> 00:00:27.480
And I'm Lauren Ward. I'm a video producer here at Goddard Space Flight Center

8
00:00:27.500 --> 00:00:29.440
and will be moderating the conversation.

9
00:00:29.440 --> 00:00:33.340
So with that, let's jump right into it - what exactly are we looking at?

10
00:00:33.640 --> 00:00:38.180
[Feldman] What we're looking at is the abundance of plants on land and in the ocean.

11
00:00:38.820 --> 00:00:42.200
In the ocean, we're looking at microscopic plants called phytoplankton.

12
00:00:42.900 --> 00:00:45.840
On the land, it's sort of an aggregate of all vegetation.

13
00:00:47.060 --> 00:00:49.020
But they breathe.

14
00:00:49.780 --> 00:00:54.040
They respire and they follow the sun in terms of their seasons.

15
00:00:54.260 --> 00:00:59.620
[Ward] Can you describe the changes that have happened in twenty years since this data set first began?

16
00:01:00.780 --> 00:01:03.740
[Feldman] Yeah, as crazy as it sounds, even though we have twenty years of data,

17
00:01:03.740 --> 00:01:08.700
we're still at a point of - in my mind - just the wonder of it.

18
00:01:09.800 --> 00:01:11.600
I could just sit and watch this for hours.

19
00:01:12.060 --> 00:01:14.660
And for me, I've got look at it two different ways.

20
00:01:14.660 --> 00:01:20.080
One is just to take a big step back, and look at the world as whole.

21
00:01:20.280 --> 00:01:24.080
Don't focus on anything in particular, but just - what am I seeing?

22
00:01:24.100 --> 00:01:25.860
What are the patterns that I'm seeing?

23
00:01:26.340 --> 00:01:32.840
And the main thing is that there's this seasonal cycle moving north and south.

24
00:01:34.460 --> 00:01:39.440
The land and the ocean they both bloom with the rising sun.

25
00:01:39.520 --> 00:01:46.100
If you just step back and watch it, you'll see this wave of green move north and south with the sun.

26
00:01:46.680 --> 00:01:52.720
[Tucker] Back and forth, and you see that so dramatically in this visualization.

27
00:01:53.500 --> 00:01:57.700
And Gene and I have been studying this for a long time using satellite data.

28
00:01:57.700 --> 00:02:02.460
But what's really cool for us, is that you see it for the oceans as well as the land.

29
00:02:02.460 --> 00:02:05.300
[Feldman] Yeah, which we never saw before the satellites. [Tucker] Yes.

30
00:02:05.740 --> 00:02:07.680
[Ward] Is that what makes this viz so special?

31
00:02:07.700 --> 00:02:09.960
[Feldman] What's so critical about this,

32
00:02:09.960 --> 00:02:16.940
this is the only data set that we have that really shows the biological response to environmental change.

33
00:02:18.060 --> 00:02:22.480
We have we all these other instruments that measure how the Earth changes:

34
00:02:22.480 --> 00:02:28.280
what the temperature, the winds, the currents, rainfall - things like that. We have all of that.

35
00:02:28.620 --> 00:02:35.500
But this data set shows what does the Earth's biology do in response to that environmental change.

36
00:02:35.500 --> 00:02:38.220
[Ward] And I think that's one of the strengths of the SVS,

37
00:02:38.220 --> 00:02:43.540
is being able to show that data in a way that a normal, average person can really respond to.

38
00:02:43.540 --> 00:02:47.600
[Feldman] And we you've been able to do, Alex, is you make it beautiful.

39
00:02:47.600 --> 00:02:48.880
[Tucker] It is very attractive.

40
00:02:49.640 --> 00:02:51.220
[Feldman] We're looking at the Living Earth.

41
00:02:51.220 --> 00:02:55.800
We're looking at our home planet change day in and day out.

42
00:02:55.800 --> 00:03:01.860
And...there's a visceral connection that we have to this home of ours.

43
00:03:02.100 --> 00:03:03.820
[Tucker]Yes....

44
00:03:03.820 --> 00:03:09.960
There's only planet we know which has an active biosphere, or a biosphere, and that's our planet.

45
00:03:09.960 --> 00:03:16.640
We know from the Hubble Space Telescope there are one to two trillion galaxies in the universe - galaxies.

46
00:03:17.040 --> 00:03:22.100
And this is the only planet we know which has life, and its very special and its very dear

47
00:03:22.100 --> 00:03:24.720
and this representation, to me, captures that.

48
00:03:25.140 --> 00:03:27.340
[Kekesi] Yeah, I mean, on my part,

49
00:03:27.340 --> 00:03:33.080
I mean really the challenge here was just kinda wrangling all this--twenty years worth of data.

50
00:03:33.880 --> 00:03:38.600
So I mean, you guys did an amazing job at collecting it all,

51
00:03:39.000 --> 00:03:44.020
and creating data sets that can be easily be used together.

52
00:03:44.020 --> 00:03:53.960
I mean with the biosphere, it's primarily SeaWIFS, VIIRS, Aqua/MODIS.

53
00:03:54.240 --> 00:03:59.320
[Feldman] You look at this image and there's so much here that we still don't understand.

54
00:03:59.680 --> 00:04:00.460
[Tucker] I agree with Gene.

55
00:04:00.460 --> 00:04:06.860
We're looking at the consequence of instruments on satellites not looking away from Earth,

56
00:04:06.860 --> 00:04:12.540
but looking at Earth, through time, how things change, how things vary or don't.

57
00:04:12.880 --> 00:04:19.180
It's just fascinating to look at and it's so dynamic and this is what's great about time series.

58
00:04:19.180 --> 00:04:21.260
[Ward] Well, that's one of the thoughts I had was that,

59
00:04:21.260 --> 00:04:23.100
the people in this room right now,

60
00:04:23.100 --> 00:04:29.800
if you ask yourself the question, "What have I done to make sure that the Earth is a healthier and safer place?",

61
00:04:29.800 --> 00:04:35.960
I think the people in this room can fairly say that they've done quite a lot in collecting the data

62
00:04:35.960 --> 00:04:38.900
and then creating the data in a way people can understand it.

63
00:04:38.900 --> 00:04:42.740
[Feldman] What I love about this is there are no country boundaries.

64
00:04:43.480 --> 00:04:47.480
There's no distinction between land science and ocean science.

65
00:04:49.320 --> 00:04:51.740
It's one world, one planet, one home.

66
00:04:51.760 --> 00:04:53.090
[Tucker] This is our Living Planet.

67
00:04:53.110 --> 00:04:59.800
[Feldman] Exactly, and the more we, as humans on this planet, inhabitants of the planet,

68
00:04:59.800 --> 00:05:03.920
look at this as one entity that we are all responsible for,

69
00:05:04.840 --> 00:05:10.040
I think the sooner we will be able to come up with solutions to a lot of the problems that we're facing right now.

70
00:05:10.040 --> 00:05:12.860
We have to look at this as one planet

71
00:05:12.940 --> 00:05:16.960
where what happens in place effects what happens in another place.

72
00:05:16.980 --> 00:05:20.980
One planet, one climate, one people.

73
00:05:21.200 --> 00:05:22.120
We're all in this together.

74
00:05:22.120 --> 00:05:24.120
[music]