World leaders, who over the weekend reached a historic deal aimed at averting the worst affects of climate change, were confronting an invisible threat.

Greenhouse gases - most notably, the carbon dioxide that enters the atmosphere when humans burn fossil fuels - have no color, smell or taste. That invisibility can make it difficult to imagine just how much of the gas is spewing into Earth's atmosphere, let alone worry about the impacts.

Using a computer model that melds worldwide emissions data with simulated atmospheric flows, the scientists at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center have made it possible to visualize all that pollution pouring into our air.

In a time-lapse video representing the worldwide distribution of greenhouse gases from May 2005 to June 2007, the scientists' data comes alive.

Like plumes of smoke, gases rise from discreet locations before spreading, swirling and fanning across the globe. Within days, coal burned in Gary, Indiana might end up in Oslo, Norway, 4,000 miles away. Huge amounts gather near the Arctic.

Leaders of developing nations at the Paris climate talks made much of the fact that industrialized nations like the U.S. and China are responsible for the lion's share of emissions that drive global warming, while people in poorer nations that didn't cause the problem are often the first to suffer as a warming world produces rising seas, intense storms and enduring droughts.

The NASA map drives that point home. Carbon dioxide plumes cover the Northern Hemisphere in thick red and yellow whirls while the world's southern half remains comparatively clean.

In the U.S., Oregon and other Western states share a smaller piece of the nation's emissions burden than states closer to the Atlantic Ocean. While Oregon's airspace contains few red plumes, periodic flashes of white indicate carbon monoxide flares causes by seasonal wildfires.

The video also offers a lesson in the importance role plants play in the carbon cycle. The red swirls dominating the Northern hemisphere become denser during the winter, when plants are dormant, then dissipate during the summer as plants absorb carbon dioxide through photosynthesis.



Where does Oregon stand nationally in all this? Here's a by-the-numbers glance at the state's carbon footprint:

13th: Lowest per-capita energy use, at 254 British thermal units

14th: Rank among states with the lowest carbon footprints

25: Percent increase in Oregon's carbon dioxide emissions since 1990

38: Millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide emitted in Oregon in 2013

3.6: Millions of metric tons of carbon dioxide released in 2013 from the Boardman coal-fired power plant, Oregon's biggest emitter

-- Kelly House

khouse@oregonian.com

503-221-8178

@Kelly_M_House