 Scientists at NCAR's Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory are studying the Earth's system. Dr. Danika Lombardotsi, who studies terrestrial ecosystems, tells us more. I've been working here at NCAR for the past seven years. I started as a postdoc and I currently work as a project scientist. What type of science is being done in the Climate and Global Dynamics Research Laboratory? We work on modeling and understanding the Earth's system, so that includes the atmosphere, terrestrial ecosystems, oceans, sea ice, land ice. My work focuses on how terrestrial ecosystems respond to and also contribute to climate change. Some of my more recent work has been focusing on understanding agriculture in the global climate system and how future climate change might impact our food security. And one of the things that you've been working on is the ozone gardens. What is that? So the ozone gardens are planted with plants that biologically indicate that our air is dirty. They develop these visible symptoms on the top surface of their leaves and they're little tiny spots that are called stipples, and that's an indication of ozone damage. Do you want to see one of the ozone gardens? Yeah, I'd love to. Okay. Here we are in front of NCAR's Mesa Lab and this is one of our ozone gardens, one of seven in the state of Colorado and one of many in our national network. So let's take a closer look at the leaves. So this particular species of plant is a cutleaf cone flower. This is early on in the growing season for the ozone gardens and so they're just getting started. When you look at these leaves, they're pretty young, they don't really have much damage yet. Ozone damage can accumulate through time and so if ozone concentrations are high enough they will start to exhibit the visible symptoms. How do you decide which plants will be grown in the ozone garden? We select plants that are biological indicators. Not all plants that are damaged by ozone show visible signs of damage so these are special plants that do. There's a lot of native species that show biological damage due to ozone and these cutleaf cone flower plants are one of them. We also plant almond milkweed, tall milkweed, a specific variety of potato plant and a specific variety of a snap bean plant. Ground level ozone is different from stratospheric ozone which is where the ozone layer is. So the ozone layer is beneficial to human life because it acts as a sunscreen and blocks sun's harmful rays but the same exact chemical compound that's found at Earth's surface is toxic to both humans and to plants. There are many ways that people can help to reduce ozone pollution. Some of those ways are very similar to reducing climate change such as walking or biking and taking public transportation rather than driving but there are other more subtle things that people can do such as refueling their cars in the afternoon or evening rather than in the morning.