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[music]

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Narrator: By studying water in all its forms,

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the Aqua satellite gives us insights into things the complex nature of our atmosphere,

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helping us understand our day-to-day weather,

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and our long-term climate.

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Just one instrument on Aqua – the Atmospheric Infrared Sounder, or AIRS,

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has given us phenomenal new science and practical applications

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with its three-dimensional view of the atmosphere.

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Chahine: When we started with AIRS on Aqua,

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we had two goals defined to us, you know, before the mission started.

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One, provide data to the nation’s weather forecasting data center,

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which is NOAA,

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and improve weather forecasting.

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Narrator: We all know that weather forecasting is never perfect – but scientists continually work to make it better,

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and the AIRS instrument on Aqua has played a key role.

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By peeling back the layers of clouds to see the

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dense water vapor hidden within, the AIRS instrument has helped NASA and NOAA models

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improve weather forecasts by six hours.

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Seeing six hours further into the future doesn’t just help improve our weekend forecast;

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it can make a big difference to all kinds of businesses, shipping,

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aviation, and agriculture.

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Chahine: So that was the first goal.

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Achieved – and we the science team, felt good.

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The second goal was improve our understanding of the climate system –

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the water vapor. That is the main

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That is the main mechanism by which weather and climate

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is formed here on Earth.

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Narrator: The AIRS instrument actually does more than look at water -- it studies gasses in our atmosphere like carbon dioxide,

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which is crucial to understanding natural and human induced climate change.

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Parkinson: The AIRS carbon dioxide data have generated particular interest

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because of carbon dioxide's role in the greenhouse effect, allowing

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the sun's radiation to come through the atmosphere easily

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and reach the Earth's surface, but blocking some of the Earth's radiation

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from getting out to outer space. Carbon dioxide is not

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the abundant of the greenhouse gasses -- water vapor's the most abundant --

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but carbon dioxide has generated the most interest

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and that's because carbon dioxide is the most abundant of the green house gasses

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that humans are known to be impacting significantly.

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We know that humans are pouring

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carbon dioxide into the atmosphere through industrial activities

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and also that some of our land use changes are affecting the amount of carbon dioxide

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in the atmosphere. The AIRS data, in addition to all the

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other uses, are now allowing us to monitor on a global basis,

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the changes in atmospheric carbon dioxide.

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Narrator: Every year plant life on Earth takes up carbon dioxide in the spring,

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causing an annual fluctuation of CO2 in the atmosphere.

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Parkinson: The AIRS data showt the seasonal cycle really well

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and they also show that every year, as the carbon dioxide

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amounts rise and then fall, they rise to a higher level

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and don't fall quite as low as they did the year before

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which shows that there's a prominent long-term upward trend

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and this trend is in large part due because of

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the carbon dioxide that's being added to the atmosphere through human activities.

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Narrator: The AIRS science team has learned that it takes CO2 emissions

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a year or two to become well-mixed in the atmosphere – much longer

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than previously thought. They’ve also learned how the movement of carbon dioxide

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around the globe can be related to weather patterns. And they’ve even

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And they’ve even discovered unexpected sources of emissions.

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Chahine: You look at the carbon dioxide in the northern hemisphere, yes you have industrial nations

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industrial areas, from the USA to Europe to Asia, you name it,

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and we see it. Yet we were able to see

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a very strong band of carbon dioxide in the southern hemisphere.

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Where is that coming from?

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Narrator: The emissions turned out to be coming from specific regions

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in South America, South Africa, and Australia.

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Chahine: You put all three together, and all of the sudden, we have discovered that there is a

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large belt of carbon dioxide in the southern hemisphere

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never discovered before.

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Narrator: AIRS has proven to be a versatile and robust scientific instrument,