WEBVTT 1 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:05.800 2 00:00:05.800 --> 00:00:14.733 So what my role is as a scientist at NASA is to work with satellite data from rainfall and topography so looking at the slopes 3 00:00:14.733 --> 00:00:18.666 and the soil types, to really figure out where and when landslides are occurring. 4 00:00:18.666 --> 00:00:24.666 Now landslides tend to occur where we have steep slopes, we have some loose soil 5 00:00:24.666 --> 00:00:32.632 that's been saturated. This is an example of a major landslide that was in El Salvador, but landslides all around Central 6 00:00:32.633 --> 00:00:38.599 America and South America and in the U.S. - nearly every state has landslides. 7 00:00:38.600 --> 00:00:44.600 So it can be caused by heavy rainfall, earthquakes and even freezing and thawing. 8 00:00:44.600 --> 00:00:54.000 Now floods occur when the soil has already been pretty saturated and the ground really can't absorb any more water 9 00:00:54.000 --> 00:01:00.833 from overflowing rivers or runoff from mountains. And so it causes a buildup of water that we can actually see from space. 10 00:01:00.833 --> 00:01:05.266 By looking at - this is an example of some Thailand floods - 11 00:01:05.266 --> 00:01:09.732 we're able to see these images and different data from space 12 00:01:09.733 --> 00:01:16.033 to get a broader picture of Earth and try to anticipate where we might have floods and landslides in the future. 13 00:01:16.033 --> 00:01:23.533 Now GPM is building off of TRMM's capabilities so we're actually able to use higher resolution or more detailed measurements 14 00:01:23.533 --> 00:01:31.033 to get a much better understanding of where and when we might experience floods and landslides in near real time, which means right away. 15 00:01:31.033 --> 00:01:38.566 This is just an example of some ideas of models that we're currently developing at NASA and other places to tell us 16 00:01:38.566 --> 00:01:43.599 what might happen with these extreme events and how they might be changing in a changing climate. 17 00:01:43.600 --> 00:01:48.833 Exellent. And really this is not only fascinating information for the science, but it's also great for community safety as well. 18 00:01:48.833 --> 00:01:52.733 Absolutely. So NASA and the researchers here and elsewhere 19 00:01:52.733 --> 00:01:57.266 try to take this data and provide it for decision makers to make informed 20 00:01:57.266 --> 00:02:02.766 decisions about evacuations and where to relocate people when there's a disaster.