NASA has shown us that ours is a
precious planet NASA has unique
capabilities because we have the point
of view from space with NASA's carbon
monitoring system you can see the amount
of co2 in the atmosphere decreasing in
the spring in the summer plants of the
oceans and the land surface are greening
up and pulling the carbon dioxide out of
the atmosphere
and then in the fall and in the winter
time you'll see the co2 in the
atmosphere increasing because plants and
animals are releasing the carbon dioxide
that was captured during the growing
season there is a graph called the
Keeling curve where you can see the
summer and winter cycle
the process is very natural
contrast that with old slow carbon so
this is a chunk of coal it was also made
by plans
it also contains carbon dioxide that was
in the atmosphere but the carbon in this
chunk of coal was taken out of the
atmosphere 350 million years ago and
since the Industrial Revolution we've
been taking it out of the ground and
using it for a fuel the burning of
fossil fuels whether it's coal oil or
natural gas has released this very very
old carbon back into the atmosphere a
lot faster than the oceans and the
plants on the land can take out of the
atmosphere it's bit by bit
moving the Keeling curve up
1989 was the last time we saw greater
than 50 parts per million
and it appears that 2016 will be the
last time that co2 has dipped below 400
parts per million and what the heck is
400 parts per million what does that
even mean well we know from the analysis
of my samples from Antarctica that
before the Industrial Revolution the
amount of carbon dioxide in the
atmosphere was about 275 parts per
million it had been this way for
thousands of years
something has increased the number from
275 to 400 or quite certain that that is
due to the human activity of burning
fossil fuels
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I take these satellite measurements and
they're the variation over time of how
the world is changing as facts we've
seen this warming over the last century
and a half
very very meticulous measurements and it
shows a really sharp acceleration in the
warming over the last four decades
people have a hard time understanding
what's a big deal for a planet that is
alma by a degree or by two degrees
celsius but the impacts that we're
worried about they're being triggered
not at a 20 degree warmer world but
they're being triggered at a 1 degree
last decades we've seen the ice melting
we've seen the ice melting at the North
Pole we've seen the ice melting really
fast on Greenland where it's pouring off
Greenland into the ocean we've had
Pacific Islands that have already had to
be abandoned because of sea level rise
we can combine our data with global
climate models and say how is sea level
gonna change over the next 5 10 15 years
because if we continue on the path we're
doing there's gonna be a lot of coastal
communities all around the world that
are gonna be flooded
it's scientists we're just taking the
most precise data that we can is open
data it's factual for instance enormous
droughts and fires that we have around
the world and directly related to a
warmer planet that has a huge impact on
people it's unprecedented if you have a
warmer atmosphere that can hold more
moisture
that's what warmer atmosphere is do they
can suck up more moisture that means
more convection more big thunderstorms
more hurricanes more extreme weather
that's one of the likely outcomes of a
warming world
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we built our civilization around the
current climate our coastal cities our
food resources our water resources
they're all pegged to the current
climate and there's no much slack in the
system we're already seeing impacts and
impacts are going to increase and a 2
degree warmer world there'll be more and
a 3 degree win the world they'll be even
more and when you're looking at those
kind of scenarios 3 4 5 degrees warmer
which are totally plausible if we go
down that path we will be looking at a
different planet
you