Module 1 - Mission to Planet Earth

E) Video Clips on Global Warming

• GlobalSP.mov
• Globa2SP.mov
• MostArid.mov
• JWcanopy.mov
• GloSysSP.mov

Play the movie clips in the order listed above. To play the movie clips, you may need to first install the Quicktime Movie Player located in the /SOFTWARE/QUICKTIM directory on the CD. Once a movie is loaded, you will see a window like this appear:

Click on the arrow in the bottom left-hand corner to play the movie. Copying the movie clips over to your computer's hard disk and playing them from there will improve the speed of playback.

The video clips address the effects of global warming on natural resources, food and water supply (including droughts and flooding), the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere and the greenhouse effect. Part of NASA's Mission to Planet Earth program, particularly the imaging radar program, is directed towards studying this problem. Radar has been successfully used to study dried-up river channels in the Sahara Desert, deforestation in the Amazon and sea ice thickness in the Arctic, and will play a key role in monitoring these and other phenomena in the future.

QUESTIONS RAISED DURING THE VIDEO CLIPS.

1. Why is global warming an important issue?
2. What will the impact be to the earth?
3. How do we monitor global warming?
4. Is global warming occurring?
5. How fast is it occurring?
6. What will it effect?
7. How do man's actions today affect our future in relation to global warming.

VIDEO CLIPS SUMMARY

• A. Main concerns of global warming.
  1. Affect on natural resources.
  2. Affect on food and water supply.
  3. Possibility of a drought every 10 years.
  4. Increase of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
  5. Green house affect.
• B. How global warming is being studied.
  1. NASA Mission to Planet Earth Program.
  2. Synthetic Aperture Radar-SAR
• C. Areas now being studied.
  1. Sahara Desert- Dry riverbeds were observed .
  2. Rain forest- Radar was able to penetrate through different levels of the thick biomass to observe changes.
• D. The future.
  1. NASA Mission to Planet Earth will continue to use radar to study global changes.
  2. Information obtained will help answer many of the questions raised relating to global warming.

Teacher's Guide - Table of Contents

Converted to the IBM-PC by Al Wong, sirced03@southport.jpl.nasa.gov

Jet Propulsion Laboratory
4800 Oak Grove Drive
Pasadena, CA 91109