NASA | Earth Science Week: Keeping Up With Carbon

"Keeping Up With Carbon" is the final episode in the six-part series "Tides of Change", exploring amazing NASA ocean science to celebrate Earth Science Week 2009.

To find out more visit http://climate.nasa.gov/esw

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Carbon is all around us. This unique atom is the basic building block of life, and its compounds form solids, liquids, or gases. Carbon helps form the bodies of living organisms; it dissolves in the ocean; mixes in the atmosphere; and can be stored in the crust of the planet. A carbon atom could spend millions of years moving through this complex cycle. The ocean plays the most critical role in regulating Earths carbon balance, and understanding how the carbon cycle is changing is key to understanding Earths changing climate.

Category:

Science & Technology

Tags:

• nasa
• goddard
• space
• flight
• center
• earth
• science
• week
• 2009
• ocean
• sea
• water
• carbon
• co2
• dioxide
• cycle
• marine

[TheCharleycat]

why is everyone making dumb comments and ruining nasa s vid? u guys are scaring the intellectuals away. i feel frightened. i am leaving.

[TEACHINGMARS]

Thank you NASA, I am sorry we live in a world, where people believe they need to destroy everything they lay their hands too.

[tianxuwang888]

The only active arguments on this video is whackitov and leighmo26 lawl.

[whackitov]

@leighmo26 my part of the argument comes down the the vast amount of data discarded and disregarded by keeling and callendar, if it didnt fit the desired outcome, it was discarded. science can not ever be done accurately by discarding scientific data that does not fit the agenda.....but agree to disagree we shall. however should you choose to look deeper into the science then i can recommend ww .freerepublic. com /focus /f-bloggers /1806245 /posts

[leighmo26]

@whackitov Wikipedia summarises and references all of the information it presents. I grew tired of doing that myself so I pointed you in the right direction. Basically this argument comes down to one thing. Years worth of scientific recording and research, and what you saw at the beach, both present competing theories. We both seem to think one is much more reliable on a global scale, and there's no convincing either of us otherwise. Shall we just leave it at that? Agree to disagree?

[whackitov]

@leighmo26 please do not quote me wikipedia as a source of scientific data! the science is FAR from proven, the ipcc would like everyone to believe that it is infact a proven case, but it is not.

when i talk about tide, i talk about maximum level and minimum level, not the movement of the water, maximum level has not changed in 20 years, nor has the minimum, it has remained the same, if there is more water, there must also be a higher maximum. very.simple.science.

[leighmo26]

@whackitov Look mate, your arguing against proven science here. The tide is how high the tide moves up and down, that doesn't change because the moon and sun aren't going anywhere. Also, climate change happens over years, you can't take one year and extrapolate to get a trend. Wikipedia has a rather good page on 'current sea level rise', but I suppose the immense amount of data presented there is no match for your observational skills.

[whackitov]

@leighmo26 we just had the coldest summer since records began.....global warming is responsible for global cooling? and a rising sea level does not affect tide level?? if there is more water there HAS to be a higher tide, mean level rises therefore tide MUST change also....unless you are trying to tell me that no matter how much water the sea contains the tide remains constant, at which point id advise you to lay off the mushrooms.

[leighmo26]

@whackitov Tidal level is not affected by climate change, it is mainly affected by the moon and sun. Mean sea level is affected by climate change and it is rising. It may be hard to notice at a place where the tidal range is so large, considering that a tide only reaches it peak every 18.6 years. The fact you are trying to get across is that you haven't noticed an effect, fair enough, but that isn't very rock solid evidence disproving sea level rise let alone global warming.

[whackitov]

@leighmo26 ok, so the rising level is construed of the tidal level, surge level, and mean sea level.....yet the tide has not risen where i am, the tide is STILL where it was at 20 years ago.....how do i know this? i fish the sea from the coast, i watch tide levels because it indicates the best time to catch, the tides are no larger than any other time, spring tide is still at 11.5 meters, exactly where it was when i began fishing..this is my data, this is my study of actual FACTS observed by me

[leighmo26]

@whackitov So no credible sources? Well you see the observed sea level is made up of the tidal level, surge level and mean sea level, basic oceanography science. Also, your common sense does not seem so common, especially in the scientific community, where people study and do research to better our society, providing us with their results so that we may use it constructively, not criticise without any thought or foundation for rebuke.