A fascinating new NASA video has been released, showing the patterns of carbon dioxide moving around the Earth’s atmosphere. The video depicts CO2 emissions pouring out from major cities in the U.S., swirling around in the atmosphere due to atmospheric currents. This visualization, which covers the period between January and March 2020, was created using the Goddard Earth Observing System (GEOS) model, which uses supercomputers to simulate the atmosphere based on data from satellite instruments like the Terra satellite’s MODIS and the Suomi-NPP satellite’s VIIRS, as well as ground observations.
Lesley Ott, a climate scientist at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, highlighted the importance of understanding where carbon comes from and how it impacts the planet. Human activities such as burning fossil fuels, deforestation, and industrial processes have significantly increased the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere since the Industrial Revolution. The U.S. alone released 6,343 million metric tons of carbon dioxide in 2022, according to the United States Environmental Protection Agency.
The video shows CO2 emissions rising from major centers of fossil fuel burning in countries like China, the United States, and South Asia, as well as from fires in Africa and South America, mainly due to deforestation and controlled burns. The pulsing of CO2 emissions is visible, with levels increasing during the daytime and calming at night. This phenomenon is attributed to the fact that CO2-emitting fires decrease at night, while plants and trees that absorb CO2 through photosynthesis are active during the day.
Despite appearing clustered in some areas and missing in others, CO2 is present everywhere but in higher concentrations above areas where large emissions occur. The visualization aims to highlight the dense regions of CO2 emissions over cities like New York and Beijing. Greenhouse gases, including CO2, play a crucial role in trapping heat in the atmosphere and warming the planet, leading to more extreme weather events and contributing to rising sea levels.
NASA’s efforts to understand greenhouse gases and their impact on the environment are crucial for predicting future climate changes. By combining various models and satellite data, scientists hope to improve predictions of greenhouse gas levels in the coming decades and centuries. The latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change confirms that human activities have led to warming, with 2023 being recorded as the hottest year on record.
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