9/16/05

SCRIPT FOR SOS RECORDED NARRATIONS

For

Coupe Studios Music, Inc.

\["Blue Marble" dataset on SOS\]

[\[INTRODUCTION (\~1.5 minutes)\]]{.underline}

Our world is beautiful and complex. In the entire universe, the Earth is
the only planet known to support life. The right combinations of mass,
land, water, and air are a few of the important characteristics that
define our planet and provide the basic building blocks needed to
sustain living organisms. All life on Earth exists in a tiny sliver of
space only twelve miles wide, from the bottoms of the oceans to the top
of the atmosphere.

It is the primary mission of NOAA, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration, to conduct research and gather data about the Earth's
global oceans, atmosphere, and land with the goal to improve human
understanding of our planet's environment...the environment which
sustains us all.

You are looking at a system developed by NOAA called Science On a
Sphere. Science On a Sphere is a display system designed to make Earth
and other planetary sciences more accessible and understandable to the
public, particularly to school students. Science On a Sphere has no
moving parts but instead uses computers to project animated images onto
the surface of a large sphere.

Scientists at NOAA and other science agencies collect and develop data
about our Earth and its environmental systems and display the results
using NOAA's sphere system. This global data can be better understood
when it's converted to images, and then shown on Earth's native,
spherical format. In the following moments, you will see sample
scientific data visualizations that illustrate environmental processes.

[\[IMAGE SWITCH TO TOPOGRAPHY AND BATHYMETRY (\~2
minutes)\]]{.underline}

You are now looking at a computer-generated picture of the Earth's
topography and bathymetery developed by NOAA. The computer uses color to
distinguish features on the planet. On the land, the color gray and red
represent the highest mountains, with yellow and green being the lowest
points on the land. In the ocean, the light blue colors represent
shallow ocean and continental shelves, while the very dark blue, almost
black colors, represent deep oceanic trenches, miles below the sea
surface.

Take a moment to find the high Himalayan Mountains located in the Asian
continent, just north of India. It is one of the few places on the
sphere where you can see where the computer used gray to color the
mountains. Also notice the dark blue colored deep trenches in the
Atlantic and Pacific oceans. The Mariannes Trench, located in the west
Pacific near Japan is nearly six miles deep and is the deepest part of
our planet.

It is well known that the land of the Earth contains many mountains and
valleys, but what is less well known, is that there is a tremendous
amount of terrain under the ocean. The Mid-Atlantic ridge is a striking
feature that splits the Atlantic Ocean down the middle and is in fact
the planet's longest mountain range. Liquid hot magma is constantly
being pushed up from the planet's core along the Mid-Atlantic ridge
creating the mountains and sea floor. This perpetual, yet slow process
is making the Atlantic Ocean wider at a rate of 2 inches per year, while
at the same time pushing the American continents further apart from
Europe and Africa.

There are many such features to be found in the ocean and appear on this
visualization as fracture zones or things that look like scratches on
the ocean floors. Many of these visible features are the results of
tremendous and ongoing plate tectonic forces that have shaped our planet
over billions of years.

[\[Audience walks to night time side of this visualization (\~2
minutes)\]]{.underline}

Now please walk slowly to the other side of the sphere for something
completely different.

\[Pause for 10 -- 15 seconds to allow walk around\]

Here on the dark side of the Earth are the lights of the Earth at night.
This data comes from a network of polar-orbiting satellites in the
Defense Meteorological Satellite Program. These satellites circle the
planet at tremendous speeds between eight to 15 thousand miles per hour.
The satellites take pictures constantly as they pass over the Earth and
scientist and computers process this collected data. There are three
kinds of lights depicted here and show an accumulation of one year's
worth of data collection. The white lights are generated by electric
sources, the yellow lights are from fires, and the green lights are from
fishing fleets. Scientists use this data to study the planet. Note the
African fires are caused by burning the fields and grasslands to
replenish the nutrients in the soil for growing crops.

As the world turns, look at the United States and Europe when it comes
around. See how the lights show the paths of the interstate highway
system. We have developed our cities and businesses so heavily along
these highways over the last 30 years that their paths are now visible
from outer space.

Notice too that all over the world, more people tend to live along the
coasts.

\[IMAGE SWITCH TO GOES INFRARED SATELLITE 2004 HURRICANE LOOP\]

This animation shows infrared satellite cloud images from a network of
geostationary, environmental satellites. Instead of rotating the Earth,
this animation shows a stationary planet with atmospheric clouds,
color-coded for temperature, moving across its surface. The satellite's
infrared sensors are sensitive to temperature, but cannot see through
the clouds. However, cloud top temperatures are a good indicator of the
severity of a storm system.

The data presented here covers a period starting in late July 2004
through September, when four major hurricanes struck Florida. This
information was used for observing and tracking the hurricanes.

Around August 9^th^, 2004, a tropical storm starts forming just north of
South America. It moves quickly across Cuba and becomes a tight
hurricane. This is Hurricane Charley, and it moves through Florida,
striking on the state's west coast and then moves across in an unusual
eastward track.

Next you see another hurricane forming in the Atlantic and moving
northward up the middle of the ocean. This is Hurricane Danielle, which
did not hit land.

After a break of a few days, a major storm starts forming off the coast
of Africa. Tropical Storm Frances quickly becomes a powerful hurricane
and heads straight across the Atlantic and crashes ashore in the
Bahamas. Frances loses some energy there, but then moves across the open
water to slam into Florida's east coast. It spins up the state and drops
a lot of rain on the Southeast.

The storm skimming the top of South America is the season's strongest
storm. This is Hurricane Ivan, a Category Five storm. Ivan hits Jamaica
doing a fair amount of damage, and then shoots the gap between Cuba and
the Yucatan Peninsula. It flounders a bit, and then comes ashore near
Mobile, Alabama and the Florida panhandle area as a Category Three
hurricane.

Now for two hurricanes at once. Hurricane Jeanne off the coast of
Florida was the fourth hurricane of the season to hit Florida, while
Hurricane Karl in the middle Atlantic decides to head north following
Hurricane Danielle, sparing Florida a third punch to its east coast.

One more interesting feature of this dataset is the intermittent line of
storms circling the Equator all around the world. This area is called
the Inter-tropical Convergence Zone. Some of the storms that impact
North America originate in this zone.

\[SWITCH TO SEA SURFACE TEMPERATURE ANOMALIES \~ 2min \]

This next data set helps illustrate the phenomena known as El Nino and
La Nina by showing twenty years of sea surface temperature differences
starting in the year 1980. The temperature anomalies, which are the
differences from historical average temperatures, are provided by NOAA's
National Climatic Data Center in Asheville, North Carolina.

On the globe, please find that part of the Pacific Ocean next to the
coast of South America, which is where El Nino and La Nina events occur.
The color scheme is pretty easy to follow: green indicates normal sea
surface temperatures; blue and very dark blue indicate cooler
temperatures; and yellow, orange and red reflect warmer to much warmer
water temperatures.

Now let's start the sequence.

Looking at the Pacific Ocean, you are going to see an ocean event that
periodically occurs off of the coast of South America. That event is
called El Nino. It can have a dramatic effect on the weather of North
America, especially the West Coast.

As you can see from the red area, there is a significant 1982-83 El Nino
event extending thousands of miles out into the Pacific Ocean. Also
notice that the significant warming of the sea surface along the coast
of Baja California. The changes in the surface temperature of the ocean
affect the path of storms. The storms move lower down the coast, churn
up the sea surface water, and suppress the normally very cold California
Current.

The opposite of El Nino is the La Nina. The La Nina occurs in the same
area of the Pacific, but instead of warm surface water, La Nina is
characterized by very cold water at the surface, represented by blue and
purple colors on the sphere. Although La Nina has a pronounced effect on
the weather and climate of South America, its effect on North America is
rather minimal when compared to El Nino.

Now get ready for the strongest El Nino on record, the 1997-98 event.
Two major weather events in North America are attributed to this El
Nino: a 5-day ice storm in the northeastern U.S. and southeastern
Canada, causing widespread power outages; and also, severe rainfall
flooding in southern California, causing enormous property damage and
some deaths. Our increasing knowledge of El Ninos will help with with
predictions of such weather events in the future.

\[SWITCH TO THE 500 YEAR CLIMATE CHANGE MODEL \~2min \]

NOAA's Geophysical and Fluid Dynamics Laboratory in Princeton, New
Jersey, developed this climate change model, which predicts the mean
surface temperature of the Earth over the next 500 years. Carbon
dioxide, a greenhouse gas, has increased 35 percent during the past 200
years and continues to increase in the atmosphere. This model assumes
that the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere will increase at the
rate of one percent per year, every year, for the next 140 years. This
quadruples the amount of carbon dioxide in the air over what it is
today. After 140 years, the amount of carbon dioxide input stays the
same year after year.

At the beginning of the model, the green color-coding reflects an
average surface temperature. 'Blue' means the temperature is a little
cooler than normal, and the yellow and orange are a little warmer.

As the animation moves forward in time, notice the light red color
starting to appear. Light red indicates a surface temperature of about 5
to 10 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than in year 2000; dark red means 10 to
20 degrees warmer, and black indicates that an area is about 30 degrees
warmer.

At about 100 years out, the polar ice caps have completely melted.

Notice that the Northern Hemisphere heats up more than the Southern
Hemisphere. Why? There is more water in the Southern Hemisphere than in
the Northern Hemisphere relative to the amount of land. Water is a great
moderator of temperature changes and heats up more slowly than the land.

This simulation assumes that low and mid-level clouds will burn off,
allowing a lot more surface warming. However, the role of clouds in
global warming is still unclear today.

Notice that after 140 years, even though the carbon dioxide levels stop
increasing, the surface temperatures do not cool off. That's because
carbon dioxide persists a long time in the atmosphere and reversing the
effects of global warming, if possible, may take centuries.

\[SWITCH TO X-RAY SOLAR IMAGE (\~1Minute)\]

Now let's take a look at an X-RAY image of our Sun, which allows us to
see its outer atmosphere called the corona. The corona is where the
solar storms are occurring\--those white flashes you see periodically.

This dataset is derived from a sensor located on the NOAA GOES weather
satellite. The Space Environment Center in Boulder, Colorado, uses such
images transmitted every minute, to predict the weather in space caused
by the Sun.

Solar storms, such as flares, solar eruptions, and coronal holes, can
cause interruptions to our satellite communications, navigation
equipment, power line transmissions, and space travel. It takes only 8
minutes for a surge of increased radiation to reach the Earth from a
solar storm.

Like the Earth, the Sun also rotates, on average every 28 days. That's
an average, because the Sun rotates faster at its equator than at its
poles. And that's possible because the Sun is a big sphere of hot gases
and nuclear reactions, constantly changing.

If this were the actual size of the sun, how big would the earth be in
comparison? Well, the earth would be about the size of a nickel.

Before leaving this image of the Sun, you should know that this dataset
is actually a duplication of the same Sun image on the two sides of the
sphere, as there are no satellites on the opposite side of the Sun to
take its picture.

\[SWITCH TO MARS\]

Here is our nearest planetary neighbor, Mars, as seen by a NASA
satellite. Mars rotates on a tilted axis of about 25-degrees, meaning
Mars has seasons just like the Earth. Other similarities include land
features such as canyons, mountains, and polar ice caps.

If you've been to the Grand Canyon, you know that it is very deep. It is
actually more than one mile deep and over 200 miles long. On Mars,
notice the long gash in its southern hemisphere. That is the Mariner
Valley. It is over 2,500 miles long and [five]{.underline} miles deep: a
canyon that would stretch across the United States.

Now look to the left of the Mariner Valley to see an example of a Mars
mountain. That is Olympus Mons, an extinct volcano. It is estimated that
Olympus Mons grew to well over 85,000 feet before it stopped erupting.
By comparison, Earth's Mount Everest is around 29,000 feet, but it's
still growing due to the push of plate tectonic activity.

The recent exploration by the NASA Mars Rovers seems to support the idea
that there was once a great deal of water on the Martian surface.
Scientists have long speculated that the lower-elevation northern
hemisphere once held vast oceans. At the poles, there are still ice caps
consisting mainly of frozen water. But they are relatively small
compared to the Earth's Antarctic ice cap.

\[SWITCH TO PALEOGEOGRAPHY/PLATE TECTONICS\]

Do you recognize [this]{.underline} planet? This planet is actually the
Earth as it may have looked about 600 million years ago. The dataset is
a simulation showing plate tectonics over the ages. It was developed by
ARC Science Simulations of Loveland, Colorado, and is based on research
done by Dr. Ron Blakey at the University of Northern Arizona.

Before the animation begins, please look for a yellow outline of the
State of Indiana near the bottom part of the sphere. Please follow the
state's outline as it tracks its way to what will become North America.

\[Start animation\]

Notice that there is nothing green on the surface of the Earth 600
million years ago. As the simulation moves forward in time to 440
million years, the land begins to green up with vegetation.

The northern land mass is called Laurentia. It will eventually become
North America. The area to the south is called Gondwana. When it joins
Laurentia, they become Pangaea, a super continent formed during the
Permian Age, about 280 million years ago. The mountains in the middle
will become the Appalachian Mountains, which are a very old range in the
eastern United States.

At 250 million years ago, we approach the end of the Permian Age. At
this point in time, for reasons that are still under debate, a sudden
extinction event occurs which wipes out 95 percent of the life in the
oceans and 75 percent of the life on land....the greatest extinction
event ever known. However, life went on and leads to the eventual rise
of the dinosaurs.

Dinosaurs evolve and grow and the super continent of Pangea begins to
break apart. At about 160 million years ago, at the height of the
Jurassic age, you can see the Atlantic Ocean starting to form along what
will become the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. About this time, big dinosaurs are
roaming the land and rule the surface of the Earth. The Earth is
different from today and you can see that there are no polar ice caps.
The Earth is a warm place with huge jungles and forest spread across the
planet. The land belongs to the dinosaurs.

However the age of the dinosaurs is about to come to an end. At about 65
million years ago, in an area of the current day Gulf of Mexico, near
the Yucatan Peninsula, a giant space rock, six miles wide, slams into
the Earth. The resulting impact creates a tsunami that sweeps across the
oceans and a wall of fire sets North America a flame. Dust and debris
from the impact fill the sky and block out the Sun, eventually killing
off all of the dinosaurs and much of the plant life.

In a very short time, the large dinosaurs that had dominated the planet
for over a hundred million years are gone. Creatures that survive are
those with feathers who can fly to warmer seasonal climates, and small
furry creatures who can hibernate through exceptional cold. So it was a
bad day for the dinosaurs, but it led to the eventual dominance of
mammals and birds, including humans.

From this point on, the continents continue to move around and
eventually form the world we recognize.

\[SWITCH TO BLUE MARBLE\]

To end the Science On a Sphere presentation, here is the beautiful "Blue
Marble", the water planet we call Earth. NASA assembled this image from
a number of different satellites to look like the Earth on a typical
day. The vegetation detail comes from the MODIS sensor and the clouds
are a composite of three days visible cloud imagery taken in 2001.

For most of us, this is probably the closest we'll ever get to being an
astronaut in outer space looking back at the Earth.

\[CLOSING\]

This now concludes our presentation of some dataset samples that
demonstrate the potential of Science On a Sphere for education and
scientific discovery.

Thank you for your interest and attention.

For more information about the Science On a Sphere program, please go to
our website at [www.sos.noaa.gov](http://www.sos.noaa.gov/).