NASA Shows How Carbon Dioxide Is Travels Around the Globe

NASA has launched a new project showing how the carbon dioxide travels around the globe. The scientists from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center have made a computer model of the carbon dioxide showing it in high-resolution videos and pictures. The pictures show the carbon dioxide and how it is dispersed across Earth.
The computer generated simulation shows the differences in how the greenhouse gas circulates in the southern and northern hemispheres and how it moves in different seasons.

NASA officials say that the latest carbon dioxide simulations will help scientists study how the carbon emission sources and the weather systems are producing different carbon dioxide concentrations on different regional scales. It can also help the researchers project the future of our climate.

Although there have been ground-based observations of the carbon dioxide, NASA’s latest computer simulations will help the scientists better understand the natural fluxes around the globe of the carbon dioxide.
NASA’s latest simulations of how the carbon dioxide travels around the globe have a resolution of 64 times more accurate than that of the regular global climate models. Scientists say that the variables are resolved on a horizontal grid, in boxes of 7 km wide. The other models were on a 50 km resolution.

The visualization of the carbon dioxide was made by a computer called the GEOS-5, and it’s part of a simulation called the “Nature Run”. This simulation uses real data regarding the atmospheric conditions and the emission of the carbon dioxide. The computer is then left to simulate how the greenhouse gas behaves on its own in the Earth’s atmosphere.

Bill Putman, one of the lead scientists of the NASA project said that:

“We’re very excited to share this revolutionary dataset with the modelling and data assimilation community. We hope the comprehensiveness of this product and its ground-breaking resolution will provide a platform for research and discovery throughout the Earth science community.”

Besides simulating the way the carbon dioxide moves around the globe, the Nature Run project also simulates the movement of other natural forces like the wind, clouds, water vapors and airborne particles like dusts, sea salt or black carbon.

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Alan O’Leary

Alan is a happily-married, New York-based writer with over 5 years of experience in journalism. He mainly focuses on subjects such as international politics, arts culture, social media and national news.