Most of the Greenhouse gases rapidly accelerating global warming are invisible. The sun's rays enter the earth and are absorbed by the oceans, the earths land masses and by plants. This process allows life to flourish on our planet. Some of the suns energy is reflected back into space particularly by polar regions and other snow covered areas. However, as in the case of a Greenhouse, moisture and heat is captured and contained by the glass panes allowing warm loving plants to survive even in winter. For the planet, carbon dioxide, methane, and other gases prevent the escape of energy back into space.
The gases that cause the Greenhouse gas are mostly invisible. It's not that these gases are bad, as life as we know it would not be possible without them. But to much of a good thing can cause great harm to life on the planet.
In the video above, the Oceanic Preservation Society, has promoted a video that uses a FLIR (Forward Looking Infrared) that makes the invisible visible. The short clip is part of a new film being released in 2015 called Racing Extinction.
Partial transcript:
Carbon dioxide is intimately associated with mass extinction. Although the Earth had much higher levels of carbon dioxide in the past, it's never had remotely like the increase in rate of carbon dioxide we have at the moment.
It's like a really sharp spike that we've never seen before as far as we know it's unprecedented in Earth's history.
Everything that we do spews out vast amounts of carbon dioxide. All that doesn't seem to be a problem because you usually don't see it.
Normally carbon dioxide gas is invisible to the human eye but this camera has a very particular color filter on it that enables us to see the CO2 gas coming out of our noses and mouths.
From D. Short
Thermal imaging devices take advantage of the fact that all objects with a temperature above absolute zero have thermal energy and will emit various wavelengths of thermal radiation (visible, infrared and ultra violet radiation).
Thermal cameras convert the energy in the infrared radiation emitted by a viewed object into a visible light display. Thermal imaging uses radiation with wavelength 9-14 microns (long wave infrared). Infrared radiation outside these wavelengths is absorbed or blocked by particulate matter or gases in the atmosphere and thus cannot be detected.
Infrared radiation, like visible light, can be focused and collected using optical devices and converted to an electronic temperature signal. This signal is outputted as a thermogram showing variations in temperature. This process uses the fact that the amount of radiation emitted by an object is proportional to the temperature of the object (the Stefan-Boltzman law).
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