Thanks for joining us here on 9
News Plus. I'm Chris Bianchi.
Now, when you think of NASA,
you're probably thinking astronauts space.
But you might not realize that A
is also home to the largest grof
Earth scientists in the entire world.
And with more than 25 satellites in orbit,
NASA tracks critical changes
all over the globe. So here,
celebrating our home planet on Earth Day,
is NASA senior scientist Liz Ho.
Liz, thanks for joining us toda.
Thanks so much for having me.
I'm so excited to be here. Wow,
it's a pleasure to have you.
And, of course, this year marks
the 53rd celebration of Earth D.
Can you share some of what we're
learning about our planet,
especially of late?
Yeah. When people think about N,
they often think about.
Rockets going up to the moon or to Mars,
but we really do.
We have so many satellites that
are looking back at the Earth,
and as we celebrate the 53rd Earth Day,
we've had satellites up in
orbit for over 50 years.
And so that's really giving us this longterm
picture of how the Earth is changing.
We're able to see changes
with our atmosphere,
with precipitation or with
the understanding wildfires,
looking at air qualities,
really all different
parts of the Earth system.
And Liz, we're obviously
speaking from Colorado.
So I kind of specifically asked
you about wildfires because thas
obviously been a big impact for
our friends here in Colorado.
How does, what have you learned
about how climate change could affect
wildfires now and moving forwar?
Yeah, I I'm really glad to talk
about this and it is something
that's very important to me too.
Wildfires, what I've been studyg
at NASA and NASA has satellites
that are looking at understandi.
Where wildfires are,
when they happen, how large they are,
what the intensity is and
we really are seeing,
we're seeing wildfires that
start earlier in their growing
season and last longer as as the
climate is changing just we have
these drier conditions so this
fuel is more available to burn.
One thing that's really encourag
though is that we can get the information
to land managers very quickly wn
we have these satellites overpa,
we learn about a wildfire,
land managers can be texted thaa
wildfire has happened so that they can.
Better mobilize resources and gt
out to a fire and take care of .
And that's certainly a huge ser,
is something that I know has come into
play within the last couple of years with
Also this past winter here in Colorado,
we saw some pretty stark snowfall amounts
here in the southwestern part of the state.
I know California had a
crazy snow season as well.
What would you say about these extreme
weather patterns and how they're shaping
our thinking about climate change? Yeah.
You know, often when people thik
about climate change, they think, oh,
everything's going to be warmer all the time.
But what we're really seeing is we're
seeing more variable weather patterns,
more of these extreme events happening.
We don't always know exactly whe
they're going to happen or when,
but we almost just know we
have to expect these extremes.
And so we see this with
hurricanes that might.
Have more rainfall in them or wh
wildfires that are longer or more intense.
All of the snowfall you mention,
all of these different factors e
together and we're seeing these,
these extremes and these variable weather.
And what specifically is NASA dg
and perhaps devoting more resous
to to try and uncover some of
these mysteries about how climae
change affects extreme weather?
Yeah. So with with the satellits
that we have in orbit,
we've 25 up there now looking
back trying to understand the
different pieces of this puzzle.
And then of course we're always planning
for what missions are going to come next.
And so we try to take the information
that's really we're trying to br
understand where we're going.
So we're using all of the information
that we have now to better inform what
satellites are going to go up n.
And being being talking with community
members is of course one way that we do that.
And I suppose I've got to ask
about some of those upcoming
missions and upcoming satellite,
anything that we may look forwao
in terms of that potential futue
tracking from future satellites?
You know it takes so long for
satellites to come online that ,
this planning process can
take many, many years.
But we're we're really trying to make
sure that as we're looking back at Earth,
we are being sensitive to what
is happening with our climate,
what's happening with our environment
and understanding different parts of it.
One new satellite we had go
up this year is called Tempo,
where we're looking at air
quality across the United State.
And so this satellite is just
focusing on the United States
looking at where we're seeing ar
quality changes throughout the
day and throughout the season.
So we can see when people are driving to.
Working back,
we can see what's happening in n
areas and of course this has big
implications for human health if
you think about respiratory isss
with poor air quality or you kn,
heart issues or other kind of
health impacts from air quality.
So really trying to understand
that right now too.
Of course, it's highly relevant
for us here in the Denver area,
one of the unfortunately the moe
polluted metropolitan areas hern
across the United States, unfortunately.
What have you learned in the lat
couple of years about air quality and
how it affects our daytoday liv?
Yeah, we're really seeing these
changes as people drive to and m
work where we're able to look a.
How the air quality is changing
and where we see spikes in in pr
air quality throughout the day d
even really throughout the seas.
So as the summer comes,
of course you're going to get more of
these heat island effects and more urban,
more urban areas might have.
Poor air quality problems.
And so we're really also,
we're also able to even track au
talked about wildfires in your region,
we're able to track where wildfs
are occurring in the smoke plums
from that those wildfires and
how they influence air quality.
So we're able to that that smoke
can travel thousands of miles.
We're able to see that with
our satellite imagery.
So we can better prepare communs
or even help to just understand
what's happened in communities
as wildfires have burned.
Obviously hugely important and
helpful to us here in Colorado.
I suppose on a more optimistic ,
where can our viewers go to
learn more about the Earth
and also how to celebrate it?
Yeah, so I know personally we're
going to be going out and taking
some hikes as a family to just y
Earth Day and enjoy the weather.
For weather that we're having n,
you can go to NASA, Gov Slash E.
And we have some recorded webin.
We have some videos with astron,
there's some crafts and activits
that families can do and and fos
can use to learn more about it.
Well, NASA senior scientist Liz,
thanks so much for joining us
here and giving us some insight
about Earth Day and some of the
advances that NASA's doing,
especially in light of climate change.
Thank you so much for joining us today.
All right.
Thanks so much for having me.