I’m Alex Kekesi. I’m the data visualizer with
the NASA Goddard Scientific Visualization Studio.
I’m Compton Tucker and my responsibility in this is the interpretation
of what’s happening on land.
And I’m Gene Feldman, I’m an oceanographer at NASA Goddard
and I'm responsible for everything wet.
And I'm Lauren Ward. I'm a video producer here at Goddard Space Flight Center
and will be moderating the conversation.
So with that, let's jump right into it - what exactly are we looking at?
[Feldman] What we're looking at is the abundance of plants on land and in the ocean.
In the ocean, we're looking at microscopic plants called phytoplankton.
On the land, it's sort of an aggregate of all vegetation.
But they breathe.
They respire and they follow the sun in terms of their seasons.
[Ward] Can you describe the changes that have happened in twenty years since this data set first began?
[Feldman] Yeah, as crazy as it sounds, even though we have twenty years of data,
we're still at a point of - in my mind - just the wonder of it.
I could just sit and watch this for hours.
And for me, I've got look at it two different ways.
One is just to take a big step back, and look at the world as whole.
Don't focus on anything in particular, but just - what am I seeing?
What are the patterns that I'm seeing?
And the main thing is that there's this seasonal cycle moving north and south.
The land and the ocean they both bloom with the rising sun.
If you just step back and watch it, you'll see this wave of green move north and south with the sun.
[Tucker] Back and forth, and you see that so dramatically in this visualization.
And Gene and I have been studying this for a long time using satellite data.
But what's really cool for us, is that you see it for the oceans as well as the land.
[Feldman] Yeah, which we never saw before the satellites. [Tucker] Yes.
[Ward] Is that what makes this viz so special?
[Feldman] What's so critical about this,
this is the only data set that we have that really shows the biological response to environmental change.
We have we all these other instruments that measure how the Earth changes:
what the temperature, the winds, the currents, rainfall - things like that. We have all of that.
But this data set shows what does the Earth's biology do in response to that environmental change.
[Ward] And I think that's one of the strengths of the SVS,
is being able to show that data in a way that a normal, average person can really respond to.
[Feldman] And we you've been able to do, Alex, is you make it beautiful.
[Tucker] It is very attractive.
[Feldman] We're looking at the Living Earth.
We're looking at our home planet change day in and day out.
And...there's a visceral connection that we have to this home of ours.
[Tucker]Yes....
There's only planet we know which has an active biosphere, or a biosphere, and that's our planet.
We know from the Hubble Space Telescope there are one to two trillion galaxies in the universe - galaxies.
And this is the only planet we know which has life, and its very special and its very dear
and this representation, to me, captures that.
[Kekesi] Yeah, I mean, on my part,
I mean really the challenge here was just kinda wrangling all this--twenty years worth of data.
So I mean, you guys did an amazing job at collecting it all,
and creating data sets that can be easily be used together.
I mean with the biosphere, it's primarily SeaWIFS, VIIRS, Aqua/MODIS.
[Feldman] You look at this image and there's so much here that we still don't understand.
[Tucker] I agree with Gene.
We're looking at the consequence of instruments on satellites not looking away from Earth,
but looking at Earth, through time, how things change, how things vary or don't.
It's just fascinating to look at and it's so dynamic and this is what's great about time series.
[Ward] Well, that's one of the thoughts I had was that,
the people in this room right now,
if you ask yourself the question, "What have I done to make sure that the Earth is a healthier and safer place?",
I think the people in this room can fairly say that they've done quite a lot in collecting the data
and then creating the data in a way people can understand it.
[Feldman] What I love about this is there are no country boundaries.
There's no distinction between land science and ocean science.
It's one world, one planet, one home.
[Tucker] This is our Living Planet.
[Feldman] Exactly, and the more we, as humans on this planet, inhabitants of the planet,
look at this as one entity that we are all responsible for,
I think the sooner we will be able to come up with solutions to a lot of the problems that we're facing right now.
We have to look at this as one planet
where what happens in place effects what happens in another place.
One planet, one climate, one people.
We're all in this together.
[music]