WEBVTT FILE 1 00:00:10.710 --> 00:00:13.313 We often refer to Earth as the Blue Marble. 2 00:00:13.313 --> 00:00:15.482 But the ocean isn't just blue. 3 00:00:15.482 --> 00:00:20.387 Tiny plants and algae called phytoplankton have a number of pigments inside of them 4 00:00:20.987 --> 00:00:22.422 that they use for photosynthesis, 5 00:00:22.422 --> 00:00:26.393 and which is the process of taking carbon dioxide and creating cellular material. 6 00:00:26.426 --> 00:00:28.328 Just like land plants do. 7 00:00:28.328 --> 00:00:31.331 And if you have enough phytoplankton in the water, 8 00:00:31.431 --> 00:00:34.434 you'll start seeing green swirls. 9 00:00:34.801 --> 00:00:37.537 Current missions only measure one green. 10 00:00:37.537 --> 00:00:38.705 The advance of PACE is. 11 00:00:38.705 --> 00:00:40.573 It measures all of the greens. 12 00:00:40.573 --> 00:00:44.277 And this doesn't sound like much, but that information, where you can see 13 00:00:44.277 --> 00:00:47.380 all of the different shades of green, allow scientists like myself 14 00:00:47.380 --> 00:00:50.383 to actually tell you what phytoplankton community is there. 15 00:00:50.583 --> 00:00:54.120 And you care about this because not every community is the same. 16 00:00:54.254 --> 00:00:55.288 Some are beneficial. 17 00:00:55.288 --> 00:00:57.624 They provide food and oxygen. 18 00:00:57.624 --> 00:00:58.758 Others close beaches. 19 00:00:58.758 --> 00:01:02.529 So we really want to know where they are and when they appear and the impact 20 00:01:02.529 --> 00:01:03.163 of all of this. 21 00:01:09.903 --> 00:01:11.371 Pace was launched less 22 00:01:11.371 --> 00:01:14.808 than three months ago and it's already teaching us things about our home planet. 23 00:01:15.241 --> 00:01:19.012 It's a mission that's exciting because pace makes the invisible visible. 24 00:01:19.479 --> 00:01:23.049 It's flying hundreds of miles above Earth, and yet it's designed 25 00:01:23.049 --> 00:01:27.020 to see microscopic things in the ocean their phytoplankton, 26 00:01:27.120 --> 00:01:31.324 tiny plants and algae that form the base of the marine food chain, the atmosphere, 27 00:01:31.324 --> 00:01:36.129 the aerosols, things like dust, sea salt, pollen, volcanic ash. 28 00:01:36.229 --> 00:01:39.232 And it's doing so every single day. 29 00:01:44.504 --> 00:01:46.473 Pace has specialized instruments 30 00:01:46.473 --> 00:01:49.476 that can describe what's blowing around in our atmosphere. 31 00:01:49.809 --> 00:01:52.879 And when I say blowing around, I'm talking about these tiny particles 32 00:01:52.912 --> 00:01:56.049 like smoke, wildfires, pollen, 33 00:01:56.049 --> 00:01:59.052 sea spray dust, all of those things. 34 00:01:59.519 --> 00:02:02.589 And you care about this because they inform on air quality. 35 00:02:02.589 --> 00:02:04.591 You know, you don't want to be breathing all of these things. 36 00:02:04.591 --> 00:02:07.927 And so it's really nice to have eyes in the sky telling you 37 00:02:07.961 --> 00:02:09.629 what you're actually breathing. 38 00:02:09.629 --> 00:02:12.765 And then there are also these amazing interactions here. 39 00:02:12.765 --> 00:02:15.602 Aerosols enter interact with phytoplankton. 40 00:02:15.602 --> 00:02:16.736 Believe it or not. 41 00:02:16.736 --> 00:02:19.739 And phytoplankton can actually create clouds 42 00:02:20.206 --> 00:02:22.142 and aerosols and clouds of course interact. 43 00:02:22.142 --> 00:02:25.545 And all of these interactions really describe 44 00:02:25.778 --> 00:02:28.615 how our home planet is responding to a change in climate. 45 00:02:37.590 --> 00:02:39.626 No matter where any of us live, 46 00:02:39.626 --> 00:02:43.296 we're more than likely experienced some kind of extreme event recently. 47 00:02:43.296 --> 00:02:46.299 Whether it's been a drought, a wildfire, 48 00:02:46.499 --> 00:02:49.702 heavy storms, heavy snowfall, things like that. 49 00:02:50.537 --> 00:02:53.940 This is a result of our changing climate and the beauty of pace 50 00:02:53.940 --> 00:02:57.377 and the fact that it's a complete Earth science mission by studying land, 51 00:02:57.577 --> 00:03:01.080 oceans and atmospheres is this really provides another 52 00:03:01.748 --> 00:03:06.019 great tool in our toolbox to understand the impacts of all of these 53 00:03:06.252 --> 00:03:11.257 and even use the information from Pace to put it into these really elegant models 54 00:03:11.257 --> 00:03:15.295 that can help predict or better understand why these events are occurring.