Welcome to another episode
of NASA Science Live,
an opportunity
for you to interact
with nature experts
and have your questions
answered in real time.
I'm your host, Megan Cruz.
And today
we will talk about
some of the extreme
weather conditions
we've been seeing
across North America.
In fact, just hours ago,
National announced
that July 2023
was the hottest month
ever recorded on Earth.
It was also the hottest
July on record,
according to NASA's
global temperature analysis.
If you have questions
throughout today's show,
you can send them
in using the hashtag.
Ask NASA on social media
or drop them into
the comments section
wherever you're
watching us today.
Now, joining me
now are two climate experts
to discuss this record
breaking news
and explain what we can do
moving forward.
Dr.
Kate Calvin, NASA's
chief scientist and senior
climate advisor.
And Dr.
Gavin Schmidt,
director of NASA's
Goddard Institute
for Space Studies.
Thank you both for being here.
Thank you for having us.
Thank you.
So again, today, NASA announced
that July 2023
was the hottest month
ever recorded on Earth.
We know this
and can say this
with confidence
because of NASA's
global temperature record.
Gavin,
can you explain
what this record is
and what this July looks like
in the context
of that bigger picture?
Absolutely.
So NASA gathers
information
from weather stations
around the globe,
from ocean buoys,
from ship records,
from automatic
weather stations,
and it kind of knits
it together to produce
an estimate of the global
mean changes over time.
And we can do that accurately.
Going back
to roughly
the mid-19th century.
And what we've seen
in recent years is
ongoing global warming.
But what we've seen
specifically this month is that
this July was so much warmer
than all previous Julys.
And because July itself
is, in fact,
one of the warmest months
of the year globally.
That means that
it was the absolutely
warmest month
in that whole record
going back
at least
to the mid-19th century.
One of the things
that we also do is
we can compare that
to other estimates
of what's going on through
what's called reanalysis,
which is the weather
forecast models
or directly
from satellite instruments.
And all of those
sources of information confirm
that July was a record
anomalously warm
across across vast
swaths of the globe.
Yeah.
And that graphic we saw,
we really saw this
July spike in comparison
to all the other
average changes
we've seen in the record.
How much more is
this July,
that change than other changes
we've seen prior?
So the the the the margin
by which the
the record was
broken was was over
0.2 Celsius,
which is almost
half a degree Fahrenheit.
And the uncertainty
in one of those numbers
is just like 0.08. So.
So the difference between
2023 and 2019,
which was the previous
record, was by it was
it was hugely significant.
Yeah, big difference there.
So we know
we have the hottest month
on record.
Kate, how is the rising
global average temperature
and the climate change
manifesting in these
different kinds of weather
train weather
we've been seeing
across North America?
Yeah.
Thanks, Megan.
So climate change
is more than just changes
in temperature.
There's other changes
that we see
in the earth system,
things
like increases
in sea level, declines
in Arctic sea ice.
We see changes
in the water cycles
that you get more heavy
precipitation events,
heavy rainfall
and in some regions
more droughts.
We also see more extreme events
like heatwaves or wildfire.
For something like a wildfire,
climate change can affect
both the fuel for fires
that can dry out vegetation.
So there's more that can burn.
It can also produce
fire weather conditions
where it's hot, dry and windy
and they're very conducive
to fire
and climate change
drives all of those.
And and that's a part
of what we do is observe
what's happening
in different parts
of the Earth system, both now
and as it changes over time
so that we can study
those effects
and how they're changing.
So for something
like sea level,
we have one satellite
or a series of satellites
that have been able
to show us total sea levels.
We can see how much sea level
has risen all around the world.
We have other satellites
that will show us
some of the
contributing factors to that.
So we have another
set of satellites
that have been able
to show us changes
in the mass of ice sheets.
So as ice sheets
melt, that water
runs off into the ocean
and contributes
to sea level rise.
And we're able to see
those effects of climate change
and how and how
that changing over time.
So we have a lot
of opportunities
to track the effects.
But then what are the causes
and how has national identified
those causes?
Right.
So so NASA is keeping
track of the causes
of climate change
to whether that's changes in
greenhouse gas
concentrations, changes
in the activity of the sun,
changes in the stratosphere
because of volcanic effects,
changes
in the natural system,
whether there's an El Nino
or La Nina.
Nasser is looking at all
of those different elements
as well.
Atmospheric pollution,
deforestation,
all of that comes from
NASA's data
and then we can integrate
that information
using using climate models,
using statistical models
to try and piece together
what the fingerprints
are of
any of those different changes
and then fit those fingerprints
to the evidence that we have.
And when we do that,
what we find
is that the long term trends
that we're seeing that you
that you saw
in that earlier graph
are all due to human activity
dominance.
And that is
is the role of greenhouse
gases, carbon dioxide,
methane, CFCs.
And there's little roles
for all
those other things as well.
But the main result from
that analysis
is that those trends
that we're seeing, that with
pushing us
ever warmer,
are really just a function
of our increases
in greenhouse gas emissions.
So in being able to pinpoint,
you know, this, this, you know,
major contributor,
why why we're seeing
what we're seeing.
What is NASA's doing to help
communities tackle
climate change?
When you do know
that the majority.
Yeah. Thank you.
So one of the things that we do
at NASA's
is that we're observing
the Earth.
So we're seeing these changes.
We're seeing what
the earth looks like
now, as well
as how it's changed over time.
And we provide
all that information publicly
so that people can use that
in their decision making
and in their understanding
of what's
happening in their communities.
So just
like a few examples of things
that we've provided, one,
when we're talking
about greenhouse gases,
we have an instrument
on the International Space
Station called Emit.
Emit was designed
to study mineral dots
which can reflect
or absorb sunlight,
but it also can identify
methane super emitters.
And so we're
putting that information
out publicly
so people
know where
those methane plumes
are coming from
and can use that.
We also have
another tool called opening ITI
that's helping farmers
better plan their irrigation
so it can tell how much water
is coming off
of their crop to the soils
and better plan
when to put irrigation
back in into their crop
to produce better crops
going forward.
And so we do all
that information
and make that all
publicly available.
We're also
developing technologies
that can help people
respond to climate change.
So everything
from sustainable aviation to
we do research
in growing crops.
Some of that's done
on the International
Space Station,
but has
benefits right here on Earth.
Yeah, I think it's
great that we make
that data publicly available
so that people can
change their actions
if if,
if there's something
that they can do
to help carbon pricing.
So we have a lot of questions
already coming in from viewers
watching online.
Remember,
you can submit questions
using hashtag ask Natalya
or posting them in the comments
wherever you're
watching us today.
So if you're ready, guys,
The first question is
from Emile on Instagram
and asks,
Will these records
keep being broken
or is there a maximum of heat
possible in global temperature?
Yeah.
So the bad news
is that these records
will continue to be broken.
The we will expect
record breaking
August temperatures as well,
given the ongoing incipient
El Nino events
in the tropical Pacific.
We expect that records
for the rest of 2023
will start to break
records to 2023.
Might not quite be
the warmest year on record,
but it'll be very close
and 2024 will very likely
be the warmest year on record.
That's in the short term.
In the longer term.
We're going to continue
breaking these records
as long as we continue
to emit greenhouse gases.
Perhaps not every year
because of the INS and the ups
and downs
of natural variability.
But what we will see
is that every few years
we will be getting
new record temperatures
being set.
Now, is there a
an absolute maximum?
That's that's a little bit
hard to say.
I think if you look at
the other planets
in the solar system,
particularly Venus,
it might be that
that maximum temperature
is extremely uncomfortable
for for humanity
and indeed all life.
So unfortunately,
there's no
there's no global thermostat
that is going to suddenly come
and make this all go away.
Sorry.
Yeah.
And just to add to that,
so there is a science community
that looks a lot at projecting
climate change into the future.
And Gavin and I have both done
a lot of work in that.
And really, you know,
what you find
from all of that work
is that future warming
depends on future emissions.
And so they can look
at how much warmer
it will get in the future.
But there's really
there's a lot of options there
because it depends on how
much we emit between now
and that point in the future.
Thank you both
for those answers.
The next question comes from
at the side of the sun
on X and asks,
Why not just release
actual temperature
rather than temp
anomaly on the y axis?
That's a great
that's a great question.
So what is it
that we're doing here?
We're putting together
an estimate of the global mean
now that there's
no one measurement
that is the global
mean temperature.
You can't get that from space.
You can't get that
from a single station.
And so when you
when you want to look at
what's happening at the Globe
all together,
you have to put together
a lot of different raw data
so you can go
and download
the raw data
that goes
into these calculations.
In fact,
you can download all the code
and you can just do
the calculation yourself
and feel free to scoop us
next, next, next month.
But
we are
using the raw data
and then we're just
kind of stitching it together
statistically to get a best
estimate of what
the global mean changes
and it's important
to know what the uncertainties
are in these things.
So for the annual mean,
it's around
five hundredths of a degree
for the annual
for a monthly meeting
like this, it's
about eight hundredths
of a degree
uncertainty because of
because of that
stitching process.
And you can check
whether different methods
give you a different answer
and unfortunately they don't.
So whether you look
at the weather models,
whether you look
at the satellite data
or the atmospheric
temperature data
or other people's
methodologies,
all of those
things are lined up
and are saying that
July 2023 was
was record breaking. Livermore.
John Weigel on Instagram
asks, How are scientists able
to estimate estimate climates?
Thousands of years ago
but now I'm
as I'll take that as well.
So the instrumental records,
as you can see in that
graph, went back to roughly
in the mid-19th century.
Our information about climates
beyond that rely on
what are called proxy records.
So these are things like ice
cores or tree rings
or cave records
or ocean sediments
where there's some geophysical
or biological factor
that responds to the climate.
For instance,
I mean, we can see where
the ice sheets
used to be 20,000 years ago
because they've left
literal scars
in the landscape
that we can date,
that we can assess.
And so there's
there's been
a community of folks
working on
that kind of question
for about the last 50 years.
And so our estimates of
of what happened
during the Holocene,
what happened
during the last ice ages
when when it was last
as warm as we think
it might
be back in the Pliocene
or the Miocene
or in the Cretaceous,
all of those things
are built from big networks
of proxy data
that have been put together
relatively well.
And and
we don't have the accuracy
for those past data
that we have
for July
during the modern period.
But it does give you a sense
of where we are with respect
to that kind of context
of change.
Mm hmm.
Kate,
why don't you take this
next one from Briana
Rodriguez on Instagram.
She wrote, What are the three
biggest causes
of climate change?
You talked about the first one,
but you know,
she's interested
to see other causes.
Yeah.
So, I mean,
if you think about
how you know, how warm
it is on a planet,
any planet,
whether it's Earth or not,
you've got an amount
of sunlight that's coming in.
And that has to do
with how close you are
to your star,
the angle of the surface.
And you have some of that
that's reflected
back into space
based on the color
of the surface
and some of that
that's absorbed or trapped.
So greenhouse
gases will trap heat.
So on Earth,
you know, greenhouse gases,
namely carbon dioxide, methane
and some other gases
are trapping heat.
And we have sunlight coming in.
We're trapping a lot of that.
There is some that's
reflected back into space
and the color
of the earth's surface
affects that.
So darker colors absorb
more heat,
lighter colors reflect it.
We also have things like
the oceans will absorb
some of the carbon.
So when we
burn fossil fuels
on the earth's surface,
some of that goes
into the atmosphere
and heat trapping heat.
Some of it is absorbed by land
and by ocean.
If you look at numbers.
So human activities
are what's causing
climate change on earth now.
So we can attribute
we can attribute
the climate change
or experiencing
greenhouse gases in particular
actually lead to more warming
than the total warming
we experienced.
Because other aspects
of human activities
like sulfur
will will reflect
that and lead
to a cooling effect.
So I'd say if you're
if you're looking for,
you know, the simple,
you know,
human activities,
principally greenhouse
gases are warming.
The planet is
probably the
most straightforward
way to say that.
Mm hmm.
Maybe if I just add
very briefly.
So in terms of
the individual gases,
the dominant thing is
carbon dioxide,
followed by methane
followed by
chlorofluorocarbons, CFCs,
and then ozone.
And that's
slightly balanced by sulfate
emissions, nitrate emissions
and deforestation.
But the the biggest
the two biggest things
are carbon dioxide and methane.
You know,
a few viewers
are wondering about
today's
temperature announcement
and if there are connections
between this
and the tango
Val tango about volcano
eruption in the South Pacific
last year.
Could you explain?
Sure.
So one of the things that
that NASA does is that we
look at all
sorts of aspects of the
of the Earth system.
And one of the instruments
on a satellite called Aurora
is the microwave limb sounder.
And that is able to give us
pictures of
how much water vapor
there is in the atmosphere
going all the way out
from the tropopause
to the to the message board.
So, so very high
up in the atmosphere, indeed.
And what that's shown
is that the Hunga
Tonga eruption added about
10% of the total
stratospheric water vapor
up to
levels of,
you know,
30, 50 kilometers above.
And so we've been
very interested in that.
That's
that's a unique thing
that we have seen
over the satellite era.
And we've been looking
to see what impact that has.
It has a very clear impact
in the stratosphere
because the stratosphere is
so dry.
Water
vapor is a greenhouse gas.
So we expect it to to nudge
just a little bit
towards warming up.
But the numbers when we've done
the calculations,
are not very large.
They are around
three hundredths of a degree
warming Celsius.
And so
that is enough
to give us a little nudge,
but it isn't enough to explain
what's happening
independent of all of the other
things that are going on.
So July 2023 was 0.43 degrees
Fahrenheit warmer
than any other July,
and NASA's record.
Laurel Darragh on Barrow
on Facebook asks,
Is that
even statistically significant?
Great question.
And the answer is yes. Yes.
So the the anomaly,
the uncertainty
in any one month's
anomaly is around 2.08
degrees Celsius.
And this was about a point
more than point two.
So it's it's
it's two or three times
larger than the
than than
the 95% confidence intervals.
So there's no question
that this is
a significant warming
and that it is real.
Right.
Alma on YouTube
asks, Has El Nino
affected temperatures
this summer?
You want to take that one
just for
sure, just to mix it up.
So, I mean, General
El Nino leads to warmer
temperature in global
average temperatures.
Bin Laden in years
or 2022 was a La Nina year.
It was tied
for the fifth warmest
on record.
It was the warmest La Nina.
Yet.
We are now entering
into El Nino,
but it's still early
so that
the warming that we're seeing
now is is greenhouse gas
driven predominantly?
Yeah, I mean,
we're seeing
the El Nino effects
in the maps.
If you if you have a
if you bring up the map,
you can see the
the band of red
across the
the eastern tropical Pacific.
And so that's clearly
that's adding to
the temperatures.
But the larger
impacts of El Nino
generally take a few months
to manifest.
And as El Nino builds,
we expect that
that's going
to have more of an impact
come early in 2024.
Josh on YouTube asks,
What about all these
super strong storms around
the globe?
Will worldwide
storms continue
to get stronger?
So climate change
does manifest itself
in beyond just temperatures
and it does drive
for some impacts,
increased frequency
for others, increases
in intensity
and for some types of impacts
both.
So for something
like a hurricane,
what we're seeing
is more intense storms,
so more cat,
a higher proportion of storms
are category
three through five.
So we're getting a
larger fraction
of the hurricanes we do
see are stronger for heat,
something like a heat wave.
We're seeing more heat
waves and and more hot events.
But each impact is a little bit
different, both
in where it occurs
and also
whether where climate change
is affecting the frequency,
the intensity or both.
We're also
seeing more
extreme wildfires, right?
I mean, we have one
burning in Maui right now.
Can we talk about
if we know whether
or not climate change
contributed to those fires?
Yeah.
So wildfire is
is a complex phenomena.
It depends on on fuel.
It depends on fire weather.
It depends on the ignition.
And all of those things
are kind of
contingent on a lot of things
that have happened over
the last few decades.
And so in Maui,
you have the impacts of
sugar plantations
being abandoned,
native grasses,
non-native grasses coming in
a very wet spring
that led to a lot of growth
and then a dry
period more recently
that led to a lot of fuel.
And then you have the ignition
and the
and the driving factors
of the fire from the
the tailwinds of of
Hurricane Dora.
And so that's a that's a
pretty complex feature.
But what we're seeing,
if you look in general,
is that we're seeing a tendency
towards more
and more intense wildfires,
not just in Hawaii but also in
Canada and British Columbia
and Alaska and the Rockies.
And so these these are factors
where
climate change
is is pushing the system.
But there's lots
of other things
that any individual fire
there'll be
lots of other things
that are antecedent to that.
And specifically
to talk about the fires
and Maui,
they'll be a lot of research
to look at that fire. Right.
To determine
whether or not
climate change affected
their fate.
Did you want to
comment on that?
Yeah, I think, you know,
as scientists
and particularly
the climate science community,
whenever we see that,
we look into
what is causing it,
what do we know?
We look at all the observations
we have,
whether they're
from NASA, from others,
and there are people
that spend quite a bit of time
looking at each of the
different antecedents
that Gavin mentioned
and understanding
those contributions
that we better understand
both that event,
but also that helps us better
understand future events.
K-12.
So have you got
Turtle on YouTube?
Asked
how many satellites
are in orbit
monitoring climate change?
Oh, that's a great question.
And so NASA
has more than two
dozen satellites
and instruments
in orbit and stuff,
including several
on the International
Space Station.
So this is an animation
of those right now,
and we're continuing
to add to that fleet.
So we launched
a set of four CubeSats
recently
that are looking at hurricanes.
We also launched
another satellite
looking at air quality
just this spring.
But those are just
for NASA's satellites.
So there are also
other satellites
monitoring the earth
and contributing to research
on climate change
from partners
and other space agencies
like European Space Agency.
And a lot of that
data is available
and we can use it.
There's also now
commercial satellites
that are helping contribute
to monitoring of the Earth.
And now
so NASA's scientists
have access
to some of that information
and can use that
in their science.
Perfect.
The questions are really great.
We'd love for you
to keep sending them in again.
You want to use
hashtag ask NASA
on the social media platform
or wherever you're watching us
today.
We'll be back with our guests
to answer those questions.
But first,
have you wondered,
is climate change
the same as global warming?
Let's ask NASA
atmospheric scientist Dr.
Yolanda Shea.
Not quite.
They each
have their own meanings,
but they are related.
So what's global warming?
We have seen an increase
in the surface
temperature averaged
over the whole globe
over the past century
and a half,
and that temperature
continues to rise.
NASA has analyzed data
about the Earth's
climate system
from multiple sources
that tell the same story
on a global scale.
The Earth's surface
is heating up
because of the increasing
amounts of heat
trapping greenhouse gases
that have been released
into the atmosphere
from humans burning
fossil fuels.
That's global warming.
Climate change
is a more general term.
It also refers to long term
changes over many decades
or hundreds of years,
but it includes
all types of changes
in the typical weather climate
that can be
and have been observed
from regional to global scales.
NASA has instruments
that have observed
a diverse collection
of the current impacts
of climate change,
like decreases
thin ice in the Arctic,
droughts, increasing wildfires
and increasing
surface temperatures.
These are all examples
of indications
of climate change.
So is climate change
the same as global warming?
Not quite.
They have their own
specific meanings,
but they are related
to one another.
In one way.
We know they're related, right?
Is that greenhouse
gases are causing
both global warming
and climate change.
So Gavin,
as our entire Earth
system changes,
what can we expect in
both the short and long term?
You talked a little bit
on this earlier,
right?
So right now
we have a lot of factors
that are kind of pushing
us towards
warmer temperatures.
We've got the El Nino.
We perhaps have the volcano.
There's some changes in marine
aerosols.
Those are things that
kind of adding to it
that will kind of that
one all continue on
at the same level.
And so
after the next couple of years,
we'll expect
probably a slightly
cooler year.
But the long term
trends are going to
keep on going until we stop
emitting greenhouse gases,
particularly until we stop
emitting carbon dioxide.
At that point,
the global warming
at the surface
will will basically stop,
which is great news.
That means that we are
in control
of what's going to happen.
Some of the other
things,
sea level rise,
that's a lagging indicator.
So that will continue to rise
though at a less
accelerated pace.
And so we can continue
to expect those things.
You know, in a few years
we're going to have this same
mass alive thing
and we'll be telling you
about how much warmer 2027
was then, then 2023.
And I
have been doing this
for a while now.
And I just want to make
one thing
very,
very clear that we take no joy
in being able
to predict these things.
You know, normally scientists,
you know,
we're supposed to be happy
that we've understood
something from the universe
and that we've made predictions
and predictions come true
as they have, literally.
But these are predictions
that we've been making
since the 1980s.
And as they've come true
and as we've seen,
I not quite the worst case
scenario is but
but pretty
pretty bad case scenarios
eventuate
we're not happy we would much
rather have been wrong and
and so as a scientist
and also as a human being,
these these questions
are, are troubling.
I, I don't want to tell people
what's going to happen,
but I have to. Right.
Because, you know,
this is
this is what science
is all about.
But but we take no joy
in having our predictions
come to fruition.
And when you're
talking about this
long term trend,
so is what you're saying,
you know,
if we don't make changes
now, these extreme temperatures
that we're feeling now
years to come,
could this feel cool to us
if we don't stop
what we're doing now
under almost all scenarios?
These are the coolest summers
of the 21st century.
Thank you, Gavin, for that
and for your explanation
again about,
you know,
not taking joy in this.
We were we're here to NASA's
here to share the information
so that hopefully
it can drive change. Right.
So let's get some more of
some of your great questions
that you're asking online.
Remember, keep sending them in
using the hashtag asked NASA.
Okay. So Mr. and Mrs.
Smith on YouTube asks,
Have you seen a correlation yet
between July's
record temperature
and the glacial march?
Kate,
you want to take that one?
So I think in general,
what we see is that, you know,
with warming temperatures,
we are seeing declines
in glaciers
and changes
in the mass of ice sheets
and that water,
you know,
some of the Greenland
and Antarctic ice sheet,
we have satellites
that have been
measuring and monitoring
that for more than 20 years.
And so we can see
those declines.
We know that water is running
into the ocean and contributing
to sea level rise.
So we know that general trend.
I think,
you know, July just happened.
So I scientists will still
look at exactly
what the effect of one
month is on that.
But we know overall
that climate change
and increases
in average temperature
are affecting ice sheets
and that is affecting
sea level rise.
Yeah, I mean,
people are tracking
glacial mass
balance of mountain
glaciers particularly.
And year
on, year on year,
we're seeing losses
to mountain glaciers,
whether that's in Glacier
National Park, in the Rockies,
in the Andes, in the Himalayas,
where we're seeing it,
we're seeing decreases
and that you can go
you can even go back
to old photographs
and, you know,
compare them
to what you can see now.
And we're seeing retreat
almost everywhere we look.
So, you know, one month, yes,
that's going to
add to the to the melt.
But but year on, year on year,
the overall warming is very
clearly having
a negative impact on
on melting glaciers.
On Facebook, Sidney Olson
asks,
Does the fact that the sun
is in the solar
maximum cycle
have anything to do
with the continuous
record breaking heat?
Great question.
And you know, is the answer.
So we're
kind of moving
into the solar maximum
and that would be expected to
warm the planet a little bit.
Roughly speaking,
you get about
0.05 Celsius, maybe .08 Celsius
from solar minimum
to solar, maximum
lagged by a few years
because it takes
it takes a while
for the oceans to
to catch up with the cycle.
So there's a small lag
where we are in the cycle
right now,
we're not really
expecting anything
other than
than a few hundredths
of a degree Celsius.
So so it's kind of nudging us
towards a warmer climate,
you know, in a
in a cyclical way.
But it isn't either
driving the long term trends
or the scale of the anomaly
that we're seeing this month.
Lots of great questions
coming in on Facebook.
This one from Sofia Barriga.
How much longer do we have
to stop greenhouse gases
being emitted by humans
or to reduce pollution?
Yeah, I can take that one.
I mean, I think
the question is, you know,
how much warmer it gets.
Depends on
how much more we emit
going forward.
And so, you know,
warming will stop when we reach
what's called net zero
carbon dioxide.
So when the amount
of carbon dioxide
we're emitting
is counterbalanced by
anything that we're taking out,
then you'll stop the warming
from carbon dioxide.
How much warmer we get
at that point
depends on
how much more we emit
until we get there.
So there is, you know,
the amount of future emissions
dictate the amount
of future warming.
We are, you know, 2022 is about
1.1 degrees Celsius
above the late 19th
century average.
You've probably heard
people talk about things
like 1.5 degrees Celsius
or two degrees
Celsius as is commonly
discussed, targets or goals.
The expectations would be
that you know,
or continue
with continued emissions
and current trends,
we would be reaching
pushing towards 1.5
degrees in the near term.
Manoff on YouTube asks,
Are we seeing a shift
in seasons
in terms of time of the year?
They happen.
Oh yes.
Yes, we are.
So in the northern hemisphere,
we're seeing earlier springs
and we're not seeing
the depths of winter
that we were getting
a hundred years ago.
And so that's
that's shifting that
the timing of,
you know, leaf out
growing seasons,
but also pests and
and insects and like trees and
and so
so it has kind of
complicated effects
on ongoing patterns.
But yes, I mean where we
where we have the data
to examine
that we are seeing shifts
in the seasonal cycle as well
while so many different effects
and these questions
are great, again,
just like really getting into
to how how much
we're being affected, right,
by global warming
and climate change.
So again,
I think
for all these questions,
the next one
is Colleen on YouTube
and she asks,
What is creating the increase
in methane in our atmosphere?
Kate, if you want
to take that or I'll start.
So, I mean,
methane has a number
of different sources.
And so some of
the sources of methane
are things like leaky
oil and gas pipes.
And so as
you know,
oil and gas leak
methane out
into the atmosphere.
Other sources
include livestock,
wetlands, rice.
And there are different sources
around the world.
This animation is showing
atmospheric methane.
And you can see the darker
colors are where
it's predominantly coming off.
But there are different sources
in different parts of the world
that are contributing
to atmospheric methane.
Yeah.
So atmospheric
methane has
more than doubled
in concentrations
since the
since the pre-industrial
and in the last decade has
has accelerated Again,
we're not really sure
where that extra methane
has come from.
We think some of
it is agricultural.
We think some of it
is a feedback,
particularly
from tropical wetlands.
As they get warmer,
they emit more methane
into the atmosphere.
So that's a a feedback.
It's an amplifying
feedback on the system.
And so
but we're still emitting
a lot of methane from
human activities
and one of the targets
that that people have looked at
is whether we can reduce
methane emissions,
for instance,
that have been leaks,
that have been identified
from the
from the emit
satellite that was mentioned
earlier on.
Can we can
we reduce
the human contributions
to methane
to kind of bring that down?
I think that,
you know, personally,
I think that
that's a good target
for us to be working towards.
But it's
there's a lot of
very diverse sources.
And so
but but we do need
to keep track of that.
And one of the things
that Nasser is doing
is trying to help
people
really see where
that methane is coming from
so that we can
get rid of
the largest emitters.
Ahmed on X asks,
How can individuals
and organizations
use NAVA
or Nazareth data
to make decisions
about climate change
mitigation and adaptation?
We did
talk a little bit about this
before as well.
Yeah, I mean,
I can start on this one.
So we have a number
of different tools
for different applications.
As I mentioned earlier,
we have a tool called Open ITI
that's targeting farmers
and how they can
plan their irrigation.
We have another application
called Power that uses
solar and meteorological data
to help inform things
like renewable energy.
So understanding the conditions
that it might be suitable
for wind or solar power.
And we have other applications
like firms
which you might have seen
in the news recently.
It can show you where
fires are burning.
And so we make all of this
data publicly available.
We put it out
in different places.
We have different
user communities
that already use it.
But one of the things
we're working on
now is trying
to make everything easier
to use and easier to find
so that people
have the information
that they need
when they need it.
And part of
that is a part of a broader
open science effort at NASA
or making
not just the data available,
but also tools and resources.
We're also moving more data
into the clouds
that you don't
necessarily need access
to a supercomputer
to process the information.
We have.
We're
putting more trainings out,
including translating
some of those trainings
into Spanish language.
And we've also opened
an Earth information center.
There's a physical space in DC,
but there's also
a virtual presence,
and the idea is to help
find the information
so people understand
what data we have
and how they can use it.
Yeah, let me
let me throw in
two more examples
that we've worked with.
One of the things
that we've done
is for the projections
of climate change
going forward.
We've worked with
NASA Ames to downscale
that information to
to more local regions
and produce
diagnostics
that are directly relevant
to adaptation decisions.
And we've worked with the
the NASA's
Sea level
change team
to produce
projections
at the
at the coastal region
that take into account
land movement,
that take into account
regional sea level rise
so that you can have
estimated changes to high tide
levels
in the 2014
and the 2050s
that are important
for planning decisions
for infrastructure
that's being built right now.
Yeah,
I mean, knowledge
is power, right?
You know, should share
and then that's why we're doing
what we're doing even today.
Right.
Like and
answering people's questions
so that again, maybe in drive
some of their decisions
going forward.
So I do want
to touch on this again,
because we are getting a couple
of questions
about a show on social media.
But Snooki on
YouTube asks,
will it be getting
hotter in 2024?
Unfortunately, yes.
So as Kate mentioned,
you know, we're
seeing the beginning
of an El Nino generally
speaking, El Ninos build
towards the December,
January period.
And so we are expecting that
that that
that event
will will build over the next
few months.
And then there's a
kind of a lag
from what's happening
directly in the Pacific
to what's happening
in the rest of the globe
for various
relatively complicated reasons.
But the the net effect
is that when you start a year
with an El Nino event,
that year is generally
above the trend line.
And so we would be anticipating
that 2024
wouldn't be a record warm
year, much like 2020, 2016
before that 2010 to 2005, 1998.
You know, so
so this pattern has has has
has repeated itself
multiple times.
So so we can say with with
with quite some confidence
that barring any other events
such as a really big
tropical volcanic eruption,
we would
anticipate that
2024 would be the warmest year
on record as well.
Hmm.
I remember reading
that the last night.
These last nine years. Right.
Are the hottest
collectively on record
as we speak a little bit too
that Kate,
just again, to really show
the trends we're seeing here.
Yeah, there's a long term
trend of increasing
temperatures driven
by greenhouse gases.
We talked about that
a little bit earlier,
that things like carbon
dioxide and methane,
as they accumulate
in the atmosphere,
they're trapping heat.
So the last nine years
have been the warmest
in our since modern record
keeping began,
which means
since about the late 1800s,
which is when we've had
these temperature records.
And so
we're seeing
those increases in trends
and things like El
Nino and La Nina
may make an individual year
warmer, hotter than that trend.
But overall,
the trend is towards
is toward warming.
Yeah, I think I can predict
what the headline
is going to be
at the end of the year,
and it's going to be
the last ten years
of the ten year
warmest years on record.
Yeah.
All right, guys, keep
sending in those questions
again. Great.
We love the interaction.
We love that
you're taking the time out
to chat
with Kate and Gavin here.
So please continue
using the hashtag.
Ask Natalya
and we'll be back
with our guests
to answer some of those
in just a few minutes.
But first,
if you live on the East Coast,
you've probably noticed poor
air quality
during the past few months
because of wildfires in Canada.
In general,
the air across
the entire United States
is cleaner than ever,
but there's still a lot more
we can be doing.
Data from satellites,
airplanes and ground sensors
combined with data on race,
ethnicity, poverty and health
can unveil
both the big picture
of air pollution
and individual
neighborhood effects.
Let's take a look
at how this information
is helping
community leaders
and other decision makers
in Washington, D.C.
Take a
deep breath.
That very same air
that's filling
your lungs
is full
of millions of fine particles,
some so small
that they can penetrate deep
into your lungs
and into your bloodstream.
Right now,
you are standing near
the heart of Washington, D.C.
Air pollution
where you're standing
has declined by 50%
in the last two decades.
And by no means
is this by coincidence.
Along with ground based
observations
and field campaigns,
NASA's use of sensors
aboard satellites and aircraft
to obtain measurements
of nitrogen dioxide,
sulfur dioxide
and other pollutants
near cities, suburbs
and major transportation.
Because you can't fix
what you can't measure
with the few ground
level air monitors
we have in the city, it's
very difficult
for any individual
understand
what pollution levels
are in their neighborhood.
NASA's satellite
data helps to fill in the gaps
between those monitors
so we can understand
the different pollution
levels experienced
in different neighborhoods
throughout the city.
When coupled
with socioeconomic data
about race, ethnicity,
poverty and health.
Air quality observations help
identify
environmental challenges
that disproportionately impact
specific communities
and underline
how much more work
there is to be done to minimize
pollutant exposure
for vulnerable populations.
Together, we can work to
address longstanding inequities
and ensure
everyone has the right
to a deep breath of fresh air.
So let's dig
a little bit deeper here.
You know,
how is NASA's data
helping to give us that fuller,
more detailed picture
of air quality across the U.S.?
And why is it so important,
really, to even drill down
to those neighborhood level?
Yeah, thanks.
And so as you saw in the video,
some of the things we're doing
is we're able to monitor
air quality from space.
So on the surface,
we have these surface monitors,
but they tend to be sparse.
They're only where
you put them.
And one of the nice
things about from space is
we can see all of the earth
with many of our satellites,
with others, we can see very,
very high
frequency measurements.
And that gives us
more information
about what's happening.
And that can be used
to help people.
So in addition
to this, the information
that was providing
that video, we've
also just recently launched
a new satellite called Tempo.
It was launched in April,
and it's going to provide
hourly data of over
North America
about air pollution.
So it's just going to focus on
North America,
but it'll be able to provide
hourly information.
And one of the things
we'll be able to get from
that is be able to see changes
at a neighborhood level, scale
at very fine time, frequency.
So you'll be able to see things
like rush hour traffic
and the effects that it has
on air pollution.
We'll also be able
to see things
like wildfire smoke.
And so if you were
in the northeast of the U.S.
June and July, you experienced
some smoke
in air quality
concerns from smoke
that were coming
from fires in Canada.
Tempo will be able to
give us that information.
And with that hourly
resolution over North America
at a neighborhood level,
we can use that to
better provide
air quality alerts
so people with asthma
and respiratory illness
will know
when the air quality
is poor outside
and be able to take steps
to protect themselves.
You can also provide
that information,
decision makers
to look at how to address
air pollution
in their neighborhoods.
I'm interested to hear, do you
do you see big differences
between neighborhoods
in a different city
you would see
because of
the sources of air pollution?
So there are some sources
that are more and more general
and well spread,
but other things like cars.
So you will be able
to see things along.
Heavily trafficked, dense,
populated streets.
Some other
sorts of infrastructure
will produce
different types of emissions.
You will be able
to see differences
depending on where you look
based on the activities
on the surface.
Yeah.
So again, that's
why it's so important
to get to that really granular,
granular level.
All right.
Let's get some more
of your questions online.
Keep sending
them in using the hashtag.
Ask Natalya or
put them in the chat
where you're watching us
on Facebook.
We have this question
with sea level rising,
could this mean that
certain areas of land
will soon be covered
by water in the future?
And we also have
a similar question
from Pat on Facebook.
He's asking
what inhabited areas
will be most affected
by the sea rise?
He's heard that
some of the island
countries will be underwater.
Yeah.
Yes. So there's.
No. Go ahead.
Go ahead. I'll start.
You can fill in. Yes.
Sea level rise
in this global sea level rise
that we can measure
and monitor.
But there's different
regional sea level rise.
And that has to do with things
like gravity,
the movement of the of
the land,
whether it's rising or falling.
One of the things
NASA's done is provide a tool
now, the sea level change tool,
where you can look at different
coastal communities
and you can see both
how much sea level has risen
in that
in that area in the past.
We also have
an ability
to look into the future
so you can see projections
of sea level rise.
And that'll give information
to people about how much more
they might experience
for planning.
And people have taken
that kind of information
and converted it
into flood maps.
So where might
you see flooding?
But there are different
communities,
you know,
based on the sea level
that they're at right now,
that even small amounts
of sea level rise can have
pretty devastating effects.
Yeah, I don't either.
That's when.
All right.
Chris on Ex asks
One of the cold winter.
We hear
the weather is different
than the climate one.
It's a hot summer.
We hear this
as a direct result.
Climate change.
So which is it?
No.
Both.
So.
So if you look at.
If you look at
the maps of any one month
or any one year,
you see structure, right?
There are places
that are a little bit
colder, places
that are a little bit warmer.
But on average,
what we're seeing is that
there are many,
many more places
where it's warmer
because of the underlying
trends due
to the greenhouse gases.
Then there are places
that are cooler.
So if you look at the map for F
for July,
there's a little
slightly cooler patch in the
in the Midwest
and in Northern Europe.
And,
you know,
in some parts of of Antarctica,
but pretty much everywhere
else is is is bright red.
Right.
So the area that you're seeing
the increase
in the amount of red on the map
is a function
of global warming. And so
you still get you
still get weather right.
And weather hasn't gone away,
but we're moving up.
So the whole the whole thing
is kind of shifting
towards
those warmer temperatures.
So
there is a
there is a contribution
to the July temperatures
that will be
just just the weather. Right.
So there may be
some aspects of,
for instance,
the North Atlantic temperatures
that are a can contingent on,
you know, just that,
just the pattern of weather
that they've seen
over the last year.
But the the overall
and the and the
and the overall impacts
are indeed
due to global warming
and to the force trend.
So there's always going to be
that noise on top of the trend.
But the trend is very solid
and is not going away
anytime soon.
So everything that you see
is weather plus climate,
and then the climate is pushing
you towards warmer weather.
Thank you for
that clarification.
You know, several
people on social media
have asked
about weather measurements
or whether where
our measurements
are taken affects
how accurate
the measurements are.
So specifically,
they want to know
if our measurements
are being taken
at airport tarmac,
making the measurements
seem artificially high.
Who wants to take
that question?
Sure.
I mean, so
there's there's no
there's no airport effect
that makes the
temperatures warmer.
That's that's
that's just nonsense.
We do use greenfield sites.
There's been a lot of
inner city sites
that have been affected
by urban heating.
They've been moved
mostly out of the cities
so that we're not including
that urban heating,
which is a local effect
in those global averages.
And then we can evaluate
how well we're doing
at getting rid
of those local effects
by looking at
the satellite data.
If you look at the maps
of the satellite data,
there has no issue
with where the stations are.
It's everywhere.
You see the same patterns.
And so
what we're seeing,
the records
that we're seeing broken,
the trends that we're seeing,
they're not a function of
issues with local
temperature stations.
This is what happens.
I think this is
is an important point
that he's mentioning,
is that we don't just use
one way of observing
or one way of understanding
the earth.
Scientists are using multiple
ways.
So he's just talked about
both surface stations
and looking at satellite,
they both show the same trends.
We've also used models.
He talked about reanalysis.
That's using weather models
to understand the past.
And so we use all of those.
We want to make sure
that we really understand
what's happening
and we see the
exact same effect
in multiple ways.
That gives us much
more confidence in it.
And there's different ways
of processing this data.
You know, you say,
well, let me eliminate these
these these these gas stations.
Let me
let me not make
any corrections.
And let me add.
But every time you do that,
you basically
just get the same answer.
And so there's
multiple products.
You know, there's
there's a product
from Berkeley Earth
that has
a totally independent way
of dealing with
some of these non
climatic impacts
in the weather stations
comes out
with exactly the same trends
and anomalies.
There's there's the Europeans
The U.K.
Met Office has again,
an independent way
of doing these things.
And the the correlations
between these different
time series are up at the
.98.99 level.
Some viewers want to know,
you know, how long does it take
to gather all of this data
for the time for
temperature uptick?
Yeah.
So what we use so, so
different National
Weather Service's
produce different kinds of data
that's used
in different products.
So so they have daily data
that they
they put out
Senate data
which
which goes into
the weather forecasts.
And then at the
end of every month,
they put out a monthly summary
for each of their
different stations.
And so the data that NASA,
NOAA are using
is that monthly summary data,
whereas the reanalysis
and the weather forecasts
use the daily data.
And so they're a
little bit different
and they have a little bit
more information
in the daily data.
But but we just use the
monthly summaries.
And so
that takes a few days
after the end of the month
to come through.
Generally speaking,
we have a good estimate
by the eighth of the month
and then there's
usually a few late,
late reports that come in.
And so we wait about a week
before we do the final test.
But but stuff will come in,
you know, over
the next couple of weeks
that refer to July.
And so,
you know,
in a couple of months time
when we redo it for August and
and December
and the whole year,
then things
might shift a little bit.
As far
as some of those
stations report
that have been
some a little bit delayed.
But generally speaking,
that's kind of
well within
our estimate uncertainty
and doesn't
really change very much.
This is an
interesting question.
Ira wants to know,
are you using the info obtained
from other planets
climates
to influence decisions
here on earth?
Hmm.
So, so, so.
So historically,
the answer is is yes,
I we had, for instance,
measurements of aerosols
in the clouds of Venus
before we had measurements
of aerosols on earth.
We knew more about the Martian
ice cap
than we knew about Antarctica
because of instruments
that NASA had sent
to these other planets.
With that information.
And as we kind of
had a pivot towards
what was called mission
to Planet Earth
in the 1980s,
we kind of turned
those instruments down
to look at what
the earth was doing.
And so like a lot of the
a lot of the
physics, a lot
of the understanding
came from the space
program, came
from planetary science.
And now we're going back
with the information
that we've learned about
how to model the Earth system.
We are now applying that to
the history of
of solar system planets
through the history
of the solar system
or to newly discovered
exoplanets around
different stars.
What kind of climate
are they going to have?
How is how are they going to be
are they going to be
in the habitable zone
for their particular stuff?
And so we've seen
and I think
this is one of the great things
about NASA.
We've seen
this continuous interplay
between planetary
science, astronomy,
earth science,
the instrumental
the technology.
And it all kind
of comes together
and plays off each other.
So so absolutely, we have
we have used that information.
We to use that information.
And now we're
we're kind of giving back to it
so that we can have a better
characterization of some of
the wonderful new discoveries
that doing in
planetary science right now.
Take Daryl Murdoch on Facebook
is asking,
is our planet
nearing the tipping
point of no return?
A similar question
from Ritchie on YouTube
Is there
hope of fixing this problem?
Tipping Point
has a very precise
meaning in science,
but what I think
they're getting at is
will it be different?
You know,
and I think they're, you know,
how what the future
looks like
depends on on on the actions
that people around the world
takes of future warming
depends on future emissions.
We know how to limit warming.
We know that reaching
net zero carbon dioxide
will limit warming.
We also have technologies
available today
that can reduce emissions.
Some of those are developed
by NASA.
And in terms of aviation,
some developed
by other agencies
or other countries.
And we have that available.
And, you know,
we have those options
available now.
And so we understand
what's driving climate change.
We understand what will
influence in the future. And
perhaps, you know, the
questioner is getting
at the idea is,
you know,
are things out of control or,
you know,
are either
the feedbacks
and the amplifying factors
going to be so large
that we can no longer control
what's happening
and that it's out of our hands?
And the answer is no.
As as best we can understand
the situation,
we are a long way
from any kind of global
tipping points
that would
that would make that true.
And so what Kate says, I mean,
let me emphasize that
what is going to happen
depends on what we do.
And so our.
We have agency
in other words,
we what we do
as a society
is going to control
what the temperatures
are going to do,
what the sea level
is going to do,
and and
how those impacts are going to
affect us.
So it isn't
we have not passed that
tipping point, if you like.
So running out of
time, we
only have 30 seconds left,
but I do have this
final question.
How can Nashville meet
the scale of this challenge
now that we've been talking
about some serious challenges
we have ahead with
climate change,
how can Nashville meet
the scale of this challenge
not only now,
but in the future?
And we'll start with Pete
to give an answer to that.
Yeah, I think a lot of the work
we're doing
to observe the planet,
to understand the drivers,
to project into the future
and provide that information,
you know, continuing
to do that,
to expand that information
so that we have more
and we can provide it to people
so that people understand
what's happening
in their communities
and can better plan
for their future.
Let me be totally honest.
It is a real challenge to scale
the information
that we have available
to all the different decisions
and stakeholders that exist
not just in the U.S.
but around the world.
It's a massive challenge.
And, you know,
we are looking forward
to anything
that will help us do that.
We're looking towards
artificial intelligence
and machine learning.
We're looking towards
cloud computing,
we're looking towards
distributed systems,
we're looking towards
better visualizations.
We're trying to
we're trying everything
that we can
to make that happen.
And we aren't quite there yet.
And, you know, I'm not I think
Kate would probably agree
that we have some ways to go,
but it is definitely
the direction
in which we are wanting to go.
And anybody that has ideas or,
you know,
facilities or
ways in which they can help
that effort,
we are absolutely willing to
to listen to that
and work with folks
all across the spectrum.
Dr. Kevin, Dr.
Schmidt,
thank you so much
for chatting with me.
And everyone
who sent in questions
today was really helpful.
And and again,
when we are thinking
about the future really starts
with having this conversation,
discussing what the science is
showing us
and moving forward
in a thoughtful way.
So thank you both.
Thank you.
All right.
And thank you again
to everyone
who joined us online.
I love that
we were able to answer really a
so many questions
from all of you.
And they were really
great questions.
Again, thank you so much.
And we hope you'll continue
following NASA's
efforts to study
and protect our home planet.
To stay updated, follow
NASA Earth on Facebook, X and
and remember from
space, sky, Sea and land
Natural provides
detailed climate data
and research to the world.
All of this data
is freely available to anyone,
and you can access
that information
and more at climate dot NASA.
Thank you.
And we'll see you next time.