2004 EARTH SCIENCE VIDEOTAPES |
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Tape Title | Record ID | Date Produced | TRT: |
Synopsis |
| AURA: NEW SAMPLES OF THE EARTH'S ATMOSPHERE | G04-064 | 12/14/04 | 15:27 | This week NASA and its international partners are releasing the first images from Aura, NASA's latest addition to its fleet of Earth observing satellites. Aura has revealed the dramatic chemical processes that form the Antarctic ozone hole and the first direct measurements of ozone pollution from space.
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TAPE CONTENTS: |
| ITEM (1): Air Quality Forecasting - The U.S Environmental Protection Agency has six so-called "criteria pollutants." Aura makes daily global measurements of all of them but lead. Pollutants include nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, carbon monoxide, ozone, and particulate matter. Aura's new measurements will improve air quality forecasts. This sequence shows Aura's measurements of lower tropospheric ozone. Courtesy: NASA
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| ITEM (2): Historic Measurement Of Air Pollution - Aura's Tropospheric Emission Spectrometer (TES) makes the first direct satellite measurements of ozone in the troposphere, Earth's lower atmosphere. Of the six EPA criteria pollutants, ozone is the most difficult to measure. The complexity of ozone chemistry makes it difficult to quantify the amounts that industry and cars contribute to poor local air quality. Also uncertain is the amount of stratospheric ozone that mixes into the troposphere.
Courtesy: NASA
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| ITEM (3): New and Improved - Aura provides scientists a new and improved look at the ozone layer, the atmospheric zone that blocks out harmful ultraviolet radiation. Aura's Ozone Monitoring Instrument (OMI) gathered four times more data about the 2004 ozone hole than its predecessor the Earth Probe Total Ozone Mapping Spectrometer (EP-TOMS).
Courtesy: NASA
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| ITEM (4): Painting a Chemical Picture - Aura's global measurements of chlorine monoxide, nitric acid, water vapor and many other chemicals reveal the dramatic processes that form the Antarctic ozone hole. These new measurements improve scientists' capability of predicting ozone changes and help them monitor the overall health of the Earth's Atmosphere. Aura's Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) provided the data for these images. The white line represents the polar vortex. The polar vortex is a circumpolar wind circulation which isolates the Antarctic continent during the cold Southern Hemisphere winter, heightening ozone depletion
Courtesy: NASA
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| ITEM (5): New Chemical Pictures - Aura's Microwave Limb Sounder (MLS) provides new global measurements of Earth's atmospheric chemistry.
1. Ozone
2. Nitric Acid (HNO3)
3. Chlorine monoxide
4. Hydrochloric Acid (HCl)
5. Water Vapor
Courtesy: NASA
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| ITEM (6): Continuing a Legacy - Data from NASA satellites establishes a 40 year record of stratospheric ozone measurements. The ozone hole grew throughout the late 1980's and early 1990's, as shown in this averaged time series of maximum areas from 1979 to 2004. While the manufacture and use of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) and halons that contribute to yearly ozone destruction have decreased, the already existing chemicals will linger in the upper atmosphere for decades before the ozone layer can recover.
Courtesy: NASA
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| ITEM (7): Ozone Shield - The stratospheric ozone layer shields life on Earth from harmful solar ultraviolet (UV) radiation. Research shows that excess exposure to UV radiation causes skin cancer and eye problems and impacts plant growth. Global stratospheric ozone has decreased by 3 percent globally between 1980 and 2000 and has thinned by 50 percent over Antarctica in winter and spring. Depletion of the ozone layer allows more UV radiation to reach the Earth's surface. This animation shows the ozone layer blocking harmful UV radiation from the Earth's surface.
Courtesy: NASA
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| ITEM (8): Good and Bad Ozone - Three things matter when considering the role of ozone in the atmosphere: location, location, location. Ozone in the stratosphere occurs naturally. It is produced and reproduced by a series of chemical reactions. Stratospheric ozone is good at blocking harmful ultraviolet radiation, but it's dangerous to breathe. Cars and industry generate the same ozone in the troposphere as a pollutant, especially near cities. This animation distinguishes the two locations of ozone.
Courtesy: NASA
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| ITEM (9): Getting the Complete Picture - Chemicals and transport process have led to changes in stratospheric ozone. Scientists need measurements of many different chemical species and meteorology to figure the observed changes. Aura data will improve our capability to predict ozone changes and help untangle the roles of transport and chemistry in determining ozone trends. This sequence starts drawn to scale. It shows the thin, fragile part of our atmosphere that carries ozone. Then the atmosphere is magnified. Inside, we see a dynamic and active system of chemicals that moves ozone throughout our atmosphere.
Courtesy: NASA
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| ITEM (10): AURA Launch - NASA launched Aura from Vandenberg Air Force Base, Calif., aboard a Boeing Delta II rocket July 15, 2004.
Courtesy: NASA
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| ITEM (11): AURA Satellite
Courtesy: NASA
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| ITEM (12): AURA B-Roll |
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