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[ rocket engines roaring ]
3...2...1...0. 

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We have commit.
We have liftoff.

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(Christa Peters-Lidard) Over 50 years ago,
the Apollo 8 mission launched to the moon

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in December of 1968. 
As part of this mission,

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three astronauts were able
to capture an iconic image

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of the Earth rising over the
moon, known as Earthrise.

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[ on recording ] We're moving around
to a good view of the Earth.

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(Christa Peters-Lidard) This image
inspired a generation of environmental activism, 

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starting with Earth Day, and decades
of environmental activism since.

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The NASA Goddard Space Flight
Center's Earth Sciences Division

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is the largest collection of
Earth scientists on the planet,

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and our job is to
be the nation's trusted source

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of comprehensive environmental
information about the current

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state and the future of the
Earth. We build, design, launch

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and operate scientific missions
including satellites,

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airborne campaigns on aircraft,
as well as ground campaigns,

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to understand how the Earth
works and how to predict how the

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Earth will change in the future.

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(Nathan Kurtz) Goddard developed
two space-based LIDARs

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that have launched in the past
year, those being GEDI,

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which is used to measure the
vegetation structure of Earth,

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and ICESat-2, which measures,
among other things,

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vegetation, atmosphere, ocean,
and changes in the ice cover.

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With ICESat-2, we're just starting
to see the first year of data.

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So what we've seen is the
thickness of the ice 

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in the Arctic change
over the course of the year. 

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So we've seen it at its minimum
and we saw the ice grow

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to its maximum extent in March,
and maximum thickness. 

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What we've seen too is that thickness...
it's a lot less than it was

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in prior decades, so it's about
half as thick as it was, say, 

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in the 80s. So we've seen a
substantial change in the ice.

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We've also started measuring ice
in the summer with ICESat-2,

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and looking to get... can we
see how thick that ice is? 

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It's a procedure to be able to
do that and this is brand new

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data that we're just first
seeing with ICESat-2. 

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(Doug Morton) From our vantage point in space,
we have a global perspective on the role

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the role of fires in the Earth system.
We see landscapes where fires are increasing,

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especially in places where
there's plenty of fuel to burn.

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Warmer and drier climate
means those fires can grow

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faster, get larger, and blow
their smoke further downwind, 

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impacting communities not just
in the locations where fires

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burn, but people thousands of
miles away. NASA has more than

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20 satellites on orbit right
now. Each of them help us tell a

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part of the story about how fire
changes the Earth system. 

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We are the first to detect fires
burning in remote locations

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with satellites that observe the
location and the intensity of

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fires. We're also then tracking
the smoke and the way the smoke

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from fires blows to impact
not just local communities, but

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people that could live thousands
of miles away. Fires in

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California, for example in 2017,
sent their smoke as far East as

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New England. Those trace gasses
and the aerosols that fires

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release then change our
entire planet. And so at NASA,

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scientists like myself are
responsible for not just finding

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those fires, but tracking the
impacts they have on ecosystems

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and the consequences of those
fires in our atmosphere. 

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(Susan Strahan) NASA has been studying ozone
from space for about 40 years now. 

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We have nearly daily, global
measurements of ozone since

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1979. Science is showing us
that the Montreal Protocol is an

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effective treaty and it's
working as intended, and I think

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that's fantastic news for all
of us on the whole planet!

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We learned that if you look at
the HCl, hydrochloric acid,

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measurements during certain
conditions inside the ozone

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hole, and then you track those
conditions each year, you can

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make a measurement of whether or
not the chlorine is going down.

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And it turns out that as the
chlorine goes down, we're seeing

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the amount of ozone depletion
going down right along with it.

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So the two are tracking
together. And that gives us

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confidence that this treaty is successful
and it's working as intended.

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(Jeremy Werdell) The ocean is absolutely
immense and it's very difficult to be

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all places at all times. This is
where  satellites come in.

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There's a fleet of
earth-observing satellites

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hosted by NASA that view the
global ocean every two days.

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The PACE mission is NASA's
Plankton, Aerosol, Cloud, ocean

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Ecosystem mission, scheduled for
launch in December of 2022.

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It is NASA's next big investment
in the combined study of the oceans

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and the atmospheres. From the
oceans, it's designed to improve

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our ability to discriminate and
identify phytoplankton community

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structure. In particular, their
evolution in time and space.

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(Lesley Ott) Satellites give us about
6 million observations of weather

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every 6 hours,  so that's a
whole lot of data! One of the

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things at NASA that we do is try
to do a good job of merging all

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of that data with a model field.
That's the starting point of a

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weather forecast, and that helps
us improve the way that we can

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predict weather. That improves
the way that we get weather

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forecasts on our phone and
improves our lives a little bit

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every day. NASA plays a really
critical role in that because we

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understand satellites probably
as well as anyone in the world.

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And so we can really pioneer and
get new types of data into those

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weather forecasts and make
sure that that helps us improve

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forecasts for everyone going
forward. 

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(Jeremy Werdell) Being at
Goddard is absolutely incredible.

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It's one of the greatest collections
of Earth scientists in the world.

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So the access that we have to each other
is just, in my mind, unparalleled.

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(Susan Strahan) There are so many really smart
people that know... that have expertise in

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so many different areas of atmospheres:
chemistry, dynamics, in measurements, in modeling.

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(Lesley Ott) It's a fast-moving
group of people,

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but it's always changing. And it's a whole lot
of fun to be a part of all of that energy.

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(Christa Peters-Lidard)
NASA's Artemis mission is an

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opportunity to look back at
Earth and regain that sense of

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awe and wonder that we had
with the Earthrise photo that

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inspired our
environmental movement.