A newly released 3D video by NASA on atmospheric movements of carbon dioxide has gone viral. Using satellite data of carbon dioxide, the one-minute video succeeds in showing the patterns of CO2 concentrations and the way the gas has been swirling around in the sky and engulfing the Northern Hemisphere.

The high-resolution visualization has been prepared by the NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland, whose Global Modeling and Assimilation Office worked on the data taken by Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2.

The video by NASA is explicit on carbon dioxide variations around the globe from September 2014 to September 2015.

Big Question Answered

The video conveys the message that rising concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide on Earth will produce thermostat-like effects. It also seeks answers to questions such as how land and ocean absorbs the greenhouse gas and what will happen when it reaches a point of saturation.

"We are trying to build the tools needed to provide an accurate picture of what's happening in the atmosphere and translating that to an accurate picture of what's going on with the flux," said Lesley Ott, a carbon cycle scientist at NASA.

"There's still a long way to go, but this is a really important and necessary step in that chain of discoveries about carbon dioxide," added Ott, saying the video is a big step in answering those questions.

Reflecting NASA's unique capabilities in observing and modeling Earth, the visual product emphasizes the success of collaboration among NASA centers and the power of supercomputing.

A case in point is the assimilation's model over the Goddard Earth Observing System Model-Version 5 run by a supercomputer at Goddard's NASA Center for Climate Simulation.

Tracking Carbon Flux

The main objective has been to understand the processes that drive the "carbon flux" as part of the exchange of carbon dioxide between the atmosphere, land, and ocean.

Since the flux cannot be directly measured at high resolution across the entire globe, the limitation is addressed by creating tools that can build an accurate picture of the movement of that gas for transcribing the patterns of that carbon dioxide flux.

Ott says though there is a long way to go, the video will serve as an important step in discoveries about carbon dioxide, as the visualization presents global carbon dioxide fields in grand details.

Vividly presented are core details of rise and fall of carbon dioxide in the Northern Hemisphere and the impact on continents, ocean currents, mountain ranges, and weather patterns. It also analyzes how carbon dioxide movement regionally influences photosynthesis in the Corn Belt of the United States.

Super Data

The data for the video has been taken from NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory-2 satellite that tracks atmospheric CO2 on a regional scale.

The video shows 50 percent of human-made emissions staying in the atmosphere, while 25 percent goes to the oceans with the other 25 percent being absorbed by land vegetation.

It also makes an effort to understand the scale at which different ecosystems absorb carbon dioxide, according to NASA experts.

The 3D visualization is a boon to climate scientists to get a quick glimpse of how CO2 moved up throughout the year and how it is distracted and distributed by mountain ranges and ocean currents across the globe.