WEBVTT

00:00:03.303 --> 00:00:06.507
- Pine trees, bumblebees,
and Swiss cheese?

00:00:06.507 --> 00:00:08.342
What do these all
have in common?

00:00:08.342 --> 00:00:09.710
It's carbon!

00:00:09.710 --> 00:00:11.979
Carbon can be found
almost everywhere.

00:00:11.979 --> 00:00:14.715
Find out just how important
carbon is to life on Earth

00:00:14.715 --> 00:00:16.450
next on "Real World."

00:00:16.450 --> 00:00:19.453
[exciting music]

00:00:19.453 --> 00:00:23.757
♪ ♪

00:00:23.757 --> 00:00:26.560
Carbon is not only the fourth
most-abundant element

00:00:26.560 --> 00:00:29.263
in the universe,
it's also one of the essential

00:00:29.263 --> 00:00:30.864
building blocks of life.

00:00:30.864 --> 00:00:32.933
It's in our bodies
and in our food,

00:00:32.933 --> 00:00:35.235
but what is carbon, anyway?

00:00:35.235 --> 00:00:38.372
- Carbon is one of the basic
building blocks

00:00:38.372 --> 00:00:40.240
of life on Earth.

00:00:40.240 --> 00:00:41.808
It's found all over the place,

00:00:41.808 --> 00:00:43.510
like in animals,
plants,

00:00:43.510 --> 00:00:45.646
and it's also found
in nonliving material

00:00:45.646 --> 00:00:48.982
like rocks and the atmosphere.

00:00:48.982 --> 00:00:51.552
- Carbon is important
for many reasons,

00:00:51.552 --> 00:00:54.988
including providing
lots of the power that we use.

00:00:54.988 --> 00:00:56.623
It's found in coal.

00:00:56.623 --> 00:00:59.960
It's found in fossil fuels.

00:00:59.960 --> 00:01:03.797
It's found, really, in all of
our main sources of energy.

00:01:03.797 --> 00:01:08.235
We can find carbon in many
different types of source pools.

00:01:08.235 --> 00:01:10.704
There's a lot of carbon
in the ocean.

00:01:10.704 --> 00:01:14.541
That's actually one of our main
carbon pools on our planet.

00:01:14.541 --> 00:01:16.610
You can find carbon
in the atmosphere

00:01:16.610 --> 00:01:18.545
as different gases,

00:01:18.545 --> 00:01:20.147
such as carbon dioxide,

00:01:20.147 --> 00:01:24.484
and you find lots of carbon
in the terrestrial areas.

00:01:24.484 --> 00:01:28.288
So in plants, in trees,
or in soils.

00:01:28.288 --> 00:01:31.325
- So what else do we know
about this carbon cycle?

00:01:31.325 --> 00:01:36.830
- So the carbon cycle is
the cycle of where carbon goes,

00:01:36.830 --> 00:01:40.567
and also how carbon moves from
one pool into a different one.

00:01:40.567 --> 00:01:43.504
- Carbon cycle is a system,

00:01:43.504 --> 00:01:45.372
this Earth process,

00:01:45.372 --> 00:01:47.508
that transfers carbon

00:01:47.508 --> 00:01:49.042
from the plant material

00:01:49.042 --> 00:01:50.344
to the atmosphere

00:01:50.344 --> 00:01:52.546
back to the plant material;

00:01:52.546 --> 00:01:55.582
from the oceans to the
atmosphere, back to the oceans;

00:01:55.582 --> 00:01:57.851
and from far below ground,

00:01:57.851 --> 00:02:01.255
from fossilized carbon pools
to the atmosphere.

00:02:01.255 --> 00:02:03.056
- So fast-moving carbon,
for example,

00:02:03.056 --> 00:02:05.492
is what gets stored in plants.

00:02:05.492 --> 00:02:06.860
You have photosynthesis
that happens,

00:02:06.860 --> 00:02:09.096
which is essentially,
really, a mechanism

00:02:09.096 --> 00:02:11.565
by which plants are able
to absorb carbon

00:02:11.565 --> 00:02:14.001
from the atmosphere

00:02:14.001 --> 00:02:18.338
and they essentially
use the carbon to make sugar,

00:02:18.338 --> 00:02:19.773
which is the basis

00:02:19.773 --> 00:02:21.141
of all carbohydrates.

00:02:21.141 --> 00:02:23.377
And that carbon that's fixed
there in these plants

00:02:23.377 --> 00:02:25.012
is fast carbon.

00:02:25.012 --> 00:02:28.448
- Slower carbon will refer to,
over time,

00:02:28.448 --> 00:02:33.253
sort of the integration of,
perhaps, atmospheric carbon

00:02:33.253 --> 00:02:38.559
into the ocean and down into
the depths of the ocean.

00:02:38.559 --> 00:02:39.893
One manner in which
it's transferred

00:02:39.893 --> 00:02:42.763
from the atmosphere
to the oceans might be

00:02:42.763 --> 00:02:47.000
through photosynthesis that's
done by plankton in the ocean,

00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:50.237
and then the consumption
of that plankton

00:02:50.237 --> 00:02:53.340
by higher level species.

00:02:53.340 --> 00:02:56.643
And then the eventual decay of
some of that organic material,

00:02:56.643 --> 00:02:58.946
those species will,
to some extent,

00:02:58.946 --> 00:03:00.781
decay and be transferred
to the bottom of the ocean

00:03:00.781 --> 00:03:03.884
where the carbon that used to be
part of those species

00:03:03.884 --> 00:03:07.721
gets locked away
in ocean sediments.

00:03:07.721 --> 00:03:10.891
- Humans have a huge impact
on the carbon cycle

00:03:10.891 --> 00:03:13.861
because, essentially,
we are changing how it is.

00:03:13.861 --> 00:03:19.333
We are taking a lot of these
pools of slow carbon

00:03:19.333 --> 00:03:21.301
and burning it

00:03:21.301 --> 00:03:22.636
and putting it
into the atmosphere.

00:03:22.636 --> 00:03:26.206
So we're really changing
where the carbon is

00:03:26.206 --> 00:03:30.310
and that has
some big implications.

00:03:30.310 --> 00:03:33.847
So we're not really changing
how much carbon is there.

00:03:33.847 --> 00:03:35.782
The amount of carbon
is always the same,

00:03:35.782 --> 00:03:38.051
but what we're changing
is where it is

00:03:38.051 --> 00:03:39.386
and what form it's in.

00:03:39.386 --> 00:03:42.122
So if you put the carbon--
take the slow carbon,

00:03:42.122 --> 00:03:44.424
you burn it, then you put it
into the atmosphere,

00:03:44.424 --> 00:03:46.426
it gets expanded,
and the atmosphere

00:03:46.426 --> 00:03:49.162
is a much smaller pool

00:03:49.162 --> 00:03:51.265
than the ocean is, for example,

00:03:51.265 --> 00:03:53.267
or our terrestrial reservoirs
are.

00:03:53.267 --> 00:03:56.236
- Humans have a really important
role in the carbon cycle.

00:03:56.236 --> 00:03:59.506
But how does NASA
measure carbon as it moves?

00:03:59.506 --> 00:04:03.277
- We have different ways
of measuring carbon.

00:04:03.277 --> 00:04:06.480
For example, we work on
measuring the carbon

00:04:06.480 --> 00:04:07.948
that's stored in trees.

00:04:07.948 --> 00:04:11.385
And to do that, we use different
types of instruments.

00:04:11.385 --> 00:04:15.022
We do field work,
and we also use satellite data.

00:04:15.022 --> 00:04:19.326
For example,
data from some new satellites

00:04:19.326 --> 00:04:20.861
like ICESat-2 and GEDI.

00:04:20.861 --> 00:04:22.129
- One way we do
those measurements

00:04:22.129 --> 00:04:23.864
is with satellite imagery

00:04:23.864 --> 00:04:26.400
or satellite estimates.

00:04:26.400 --> 00:04:28.335
We use LIDAR instruments

00:04:28.335 --> 00:04:29.369
that are in space

00:04:29.369 --> 00:04:31.538
that are pointed
down at the Earth

00:04:31.538 --> 00:04:35.075
that shoot LIDAR pulses
towards the Earth

00:04:35.075 --> 00:04:36.844
and measure the time
that it takes

00:04:36.844 --> 00:04:38.078
for those pulses
to return

00:04:38.078 --> 00:04:39.813
to the satellite
sensor.

00:04:39.813 --> 00:04:41.849
From those pieces
of information,

00:04:41.849 --> 00:04:46.620
we can learn about
the height of forests

00:04:46.620 --> 00:04:48.488
and other structural
characteristics

00:04:48.488 --> 00:04:49.890
of the forest canopy.

00:04:49.890 --> 00:04:51.925
- In addition to using
the satellite data,

00:04:51.925 --> 00:04:54.528
we also have to do field work.

00:04:54.528 --> 00:04:58.198
We go in the field and we
measure what species it is.

00:04:58.198 --> 00:05:00.234
We get the biometry of the tree,
which is--

00:05:00.234 --> 00:05:03.670
a biometry is measuring
of the living things.

00:05:03.670 --> 00:05:05.806
We take a tape and
we put it around the tree

00:05:05.806 --> 00:05:07.741
and we measure
the circumference,

00:05:07.741 --> 00:05:09.676
measure the height of a tree,

00:05:09.676 --> 00:05:11.678
and then we compare that
to what we're getting

00:05:11.678 --> 00:05:12.946
from the satellite.

00:05:12.946 --> 00:05:15.482
- We would like to get
a better understanding

00:05:15.482 --> 00:05:19.219
of where carbon exists
on the landscape.

00:05:19.219 --> 00:05:22.756
- Carbon really is essential
to all life as we know it,

00:05:22.756 --> 00:05:25.025
and we can see the carbon cycle
in motion

00:05:25.025 --> 00:05:27.027
thanks to NASA's eyes
in the sky,

00:05:27.027 --> 00:05:29.463
on the ground,
and in space.

00:05:29.463 --> 00:05:32.132
"C" ya next time
on "Real World."