- I work on making direct measurements
of the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere
and how much are coming in and out of plants.
- Greenhouse gases are things like carbon dioxide and methane.
And they're called greenhouse gases
because they basically act like a giant greenhouse
around the Earth.
And they sort of trap the heat energy from the Sun
and lead to an increase in temperatures in the Earth
that we experience.
But there are these towers that are equipped
with all sorts of instruments
to measure the exchange of these gases
between the atmosphere and the land surface.
- So we measure carbon dioxide in the atmosphere
using a device called a gas analyzer.
The gas analyzer has a light source and a sensor.
So in this volume between the light source and the sensor,
depending on how much carbon dioxide is in here,
the sensor will detect more light or less light
from the light source in the gas analyzer.
So depending on the landscape that we're measuring in,
either a farm or a forest,
we may see different levels of carbon dioxide
and different response to the climate
or even just daily changes in solar radiation or temperature.