Alan from California: Can CloudSat help us better understand and manage our fresh water resources?
Yeah. Well, the amount of fresh water on our planet that actually is used to sustain life, to produce
the world's food, is actually tiny compared to the total amount of water on our planet.
Less than 1 percent of the water is in the form of fresh water. And tiny amounts still exist in the atmosphere.
And even tinier amounts still exist in clouds. And it's the water in clouds that represents
absolutely critical, because that's the renewable part of our fresh water supply.
That's where the water comes to replace the water we take out to produce food.
So it's kind of like developing a budget for your cost of living.
You know, if you develop the budget, you kind of want to know what your income and how it's going to change in time.
And the clouds establish our water lifestyle. And so it's very,
very important to understand how that income of water is going to change in the future.
And how, for example, climate influences will alter that income of water.