I think one of the things that's really special about this
visualization is that it's showing this is new and really complex
part of our model, which is atmospheric chemistry.
One of the issues, I think, with atmospheric chemistry
is that it's so complicated and it changes so rapidly on a short scale.
We're not necessarily able to observe it all the time
everywhere.
So that's where models come in by merging models and satellite data.
We get a much fuller picture of what's going on throughout the atmosphere.
We can see gases that we couldn't see with satellites alone.
We can see the parts of the atmosphere column that we really need to know,
like the nose level contributions of pollutants that we need
to communicate to our policy makers to protect people's health.
So what we are seeing is visualization
of the composition of the atmosphere as it relates to air pollution.
There are hundreds of chemicals of that all contributes to those pollutants.
And you can see and this visualization
is really what the computer model does.
Like underneath there are hundreds of chemicals.
They all react to each other.
It's a huge dating pool.
And all of the chemicals date each other all the time.
So even though these chemicals, some of them are present
only at these very dilute concentrations, they're actually quite important.
So we have to really track all of these different molecules
be able to get at those pieces that people really need.
The pieces of information that affect human health.
We rely on computer models to gain
additional insights on where is it formed?
Where is it destroyed?
What are the mechanisms and how it is formed?
But also how can it be mitigated.
There's all this interesting stuff
going on all around us that we're not necessarily aware of.
And so this simulation is really just
trying to illustrate what's going on with those gases.
But by doing so many of them illustrate how complex their interactions are
and how many things are going on, even if we're not aware of them all the time,
Ten years ago, we couldn't do anything like this.
So this is really a revolutionary type of approach
to be able to combine the satellite and the model.
This is a really exciting new frontier for us.
Right?
So what we are seeing in the animation
is visualization of the composition of the atmosphere
and how all the chemicals interact
with each other.
As it relates to air pollution.
So in order to typically when we talk about air pollution,
we think about a couple of key pollutants.
This is ozone, nitrogen dioxide, uh, fine particulate matter.
Uh, but underneath that there are hundreds of chemicals
that all contribute to those pollutants
and how they interact with each other
and how they sort of influence each other.
That's what you simulate in a computer model.
And what you can see in this visualization
is really what the computer model does sort of like underneath all the
kind of like it's a huge dating pool
and all of the chemicals, they do each other all the time.
Ozone typically is sort of like considered a little bit
the Holy Grail of atmospheric chemistry, because in order to get it right,
you have to get a lot of the other chemicals right
because they all influence ozone
So we start
and we end with ozone because it's really kind of like
the central the species in atmospheric chemistry.
It protects life on earth, in the stratosphere with the ozone layer.
But it's also a pollutant when it's at surface level.
So it's so toxic to humans, but also to the vegetation.
So it's very important that aspect.
But also chemically, it's very complicated.
It interacts with a lot of the other chemicals.
In order to get it right in the model, you have to get a lot of
the other chemicals right.
So it's sort of like the holy grail of atmospheric.
Chemistry in many ways.
The chemistry in the atmosphere is very complex.
There are hundreds of chemicals they all react to of each other.
And one of the most challenging aspects of it
is that they have very different lifetimes
And so there are a couple of species in the animation
that we know that they are carcinogenic, and formaldehyde is actually one of them.
And I think that it's in the hydrocarbons.
But one of the issues, I think, with atmospheric
chemistry is that, um, because it's so complicated,
and it changes so rapidly
on our short scale, we don't necessarily care.
We're not necessarily able to observe it all the time everywhere.
And so we rely on computer models to gain additional insight.
So where is it formed?
Where is it destroyed?
What are the mechanisms and how it is formed?
But also how can kind of be mitigated, let's say, if we changed emissions
or if we even just emit things at a different time during the day?
How would that change the formation of the
air pollution?
And so you need the model because those questions, they're so complicated.
Um, so you can just wrap your head around how ozone.
Is formed to really need a computer model to understand that.
My name is Christoph Keller.
I'm a research scientist at NASA's Goddard goes
to global warming and a simulation of.
Perfect
I think one of the things that's really special about this visualization
is that it's showing there's this new and really complex part of our model.