thank you for 50k! and thank you to all the patrons who made this possible! www.patreon.com/ClimateAdam - not only do they support the channel, but they get sneak peeks of videos like this and exclusive content (wanna see all the failed skateboarding attempts anyone??)
In the early 2000s I experienced the third Canary in the coal mine. The rising Arctic temperatures were allowing the mountain pine beetle to survive and within a few short years the mountain beetle consume 75 million hectares of forest. That is equivalent to the entire Forest canopy of Washington and Oregon combined
Here. Let me set up a thought experiment for you. So, let's imagine there's a special planet that has no greenhouse gases in its atmosphere and the surface only radiates one wavelength of infrared. Let's say it's 15 microns. At present, 100% of the energy in that wavelength is being radiated to space. None of it is being absorbed by the atmosphere. In this situation, adding a gas that absorbs that wavelength will add energy to the atmosphere. So, let's add 25ppm of Scary Dioxide. Now the atmosphere is absorbing 50% of the energy in that band of IR and 50% is still being radiated to space. Just like before, adding a higher percentage of Scary Dioxide will add more energy to the atmosphere since 50% of the energy is still making it to space. So, let's move up to 50ppm. Now, the atmosphere is absorbing 100% of the energy and none of the energy is making it to space. In this last situation, adding a higher percentage of the gas does NOTHING. ALL the energy coming from the ground is ALREADY being absorbed. The gas is LIMITED OUT. There are two exceptions--the ground would need to radiate more energy, since it's ENERGY that heats things, or the gas would need to make the atmosphere denser. Now that you know how the greenhouse effect works, here's the basic guidelines: 1. If a gas absorbs a wavelength of infrared that's being radiated from the SURFACE to SPACE, even if it's just a small percentage, that gas will add energy to the atmosphere. 2. If a gas absorbs a wavelength of infrared that's NOT being radiated from the SURFACE to SPACE, in other words, some component of the atmosphere is already absorbing ALL the energy, then that gas does nothing. It's limited out.
In the case of CO2, it absorbs 4 wavelengths strongly; 2.0 microns, 2.7 microns, 4.25 microns, and 15 microns. Of those 4 bands, only the 15-micron band has any energy. However, across those 4, the surface radiates both in the center of the bands and on the shoulders of the bands, about 3.4 watts/sqm/str. Not a lot of energy there. As for pathlengths, which is the distance EM radiation travels through an absorbing medium, they are ALL very short. In the center of the bands, from the surface, about 10 meters (25 to 30 feet). On the shoulders of the bands, about 300 meters. So, by 300 meters, ALL that energy is absorbed. Carbon dioxide is limited out.
As for carbon dioxide behaving like a blanket or some type of insulation, it does not. Energy transfer through the gas is substantial. It has translational and rotational components that will transfer kinetic energy and it has the vibrational component that transfers energy via resonance. (Keep in mind that the vibrational component is an internal energy and is NOT heat.) For a real world application, you might contact a manufacturer of double-pane glass windows and suggest they start using CO2 between the panes since it's such a good insulator. When they finish chuckling, they'll explain that they use argon since it only has the translational component to transfer energy.
As for methane, it has long pathlengths. But is it adding that much energy to the atmosphere? It has two IR peaks, one at 7.65 microns, which is the most populated peak, and another at 3.31 microns. A quick check of Boltzmann (statistical mechanics) shows that only .4% of methane is above ground state at the 7.65-micron peak and only about .0008% is above vibrational ground state at the 3.31-micron peak. So, it's not exactly adding much energy to the atmosphere. If you don't know how to work those equations, I'll show you.
Summary of the main points: 2:50 Plants and the ocean absorb a lot of CO2 relatively quickly (centuries). 3:15 After that, the slower process of ocean sedimentation will take 10,000 years to reduce the CO2 we add to the atmosphere by 80%. 20% of the CO2 emitted will still be in the atmosphere after 10,000 years. 4:45 67% of the heating we cause will still be in the atmosphere after 10,000 years. 7:25 A 2° rise in temperatures will cause a half meter rise in sea levels by 2100, and a 10 meter rise in 10,000 years. 8:25 Because of the CO2 we've already added to the atmosphere, the next Ice age will start in 120,000 years instead of 50,000 years. These projections could change with volcanic activity or a meteor strike.
To date NOT ONE of the official 37 odd climate models are accurate forward or backwards, so they invented 'forcing functions' rubbish. It will be 720 years before Miami and get their feet wet and 1000 years before Seattle is as hot as DeIhi. It's lovely 18°C in Seattle this mid-July evening.
What if we capture those CO2 and turn it into solid carbon and CO2. If we can somehow reduce O2 levels to pre Industrialization would the temperature of atmosphere decrease?
@@JSM-bb80u What if we capture the carbon from our vehicle tailpipe and convert it to cheese-like substance. Then we can crumble it into our hemp-fiber shag rug, and snort it when we're high in CBD gummies, waiting for our government SNAP card!
Never talk about 2100. We have less than 20 years left - 2100 is always mentioned to make it seem we have a long time to deal with the climate crisis - we don't. It's here NOW!
Or perhaps we shouldn't focus on any particular date at all, but rather that what we do today will have delayed consequences far into the future. It's a bit terrifying to consider the reality that even if we stopped all emissions today, that heat energy would continue to accumulate for a long time before reaching a new equilibrium ...
I agree, I feel it's a complete waste of time allowing politicians to organise summits and just agree to set dates that are comfortably 'beyond' their expected governorship of their individual countries. They pose grimly for the cameras, come home, do nothing (or nothing worthwhile), and forget all about 2035, 2060 or 2100. They know they won't be in power then, most likely, so it'll be someone else's problem. Governments need to start today, working out 'how' to create green jobs, green industries, cleaning current industries, how to make restoration of the environment pay. However, while politicians are chosen from people who worship money and economics above the environment, we're never going to get anywhere. Considering the years since the pandemic, and how rapidly the environment has become much more extreme since that time, and how little has been done by any government, I wouldn't be surprised if very large numbers of humans started to expire within 5 years. At the moment, people can still run from the floods, the wildfires, hide from the storms and hurricanes, even escape the droughts and wet bulb regions by moving about. But the food growing regions cannot. It's said there's going to be a large deficit in China's harvest this year, and other places around the world (eg. America's West) are expecting reduced harvest through drought, heatwaves and flood - and we're still in July. We've no idea what's coming for the rest of the season.
Please tell me after 20 years how your end of the world faring. Humanity have already shown incredible adaptibility - we live on every continent (except the coldest one Antarctica. ) Global warming will not lower human population. Global warming will not be a cause of extinction of human race. Global warming will have beneficial effects for colonization, navigation and mining of North and South pole.
@@TheIgdrasil1 The most egregiously wrong thing you said; "[climate changing] will not cause decrease in human populations" Brother, it already is, why do you think there's so many migrants?
The biggest long-term effect you really didn't cover: changes to the biome. *Our activities are causing extinction of some species* , as well as promoting some other species. These changes are going to ripple forward for as long as life can exist on this planet.
Activities of a supervolcano were and will be causing mass extinction. Activities of a asteroid, comet, were and will be causing mass extinction. There were always extinctions, and life survived ultimately. But activities of a carbon calcification and depoziting carbon dioxide will be causing mass extinction after 500 hundred million years from NOW- there will be no CO2! No photosynthesis. No life. Last extinction. Life on this Earth have already limitation set in stone. One billion years is enough. Dont worry, live your insignificant life, you and I we are just dust in the wind.
@@phil20_20 *ANTI-Science DISINFORMATION.* There is no methane in permafrost. It melts every summer and then refreeze a month later. There is no methane in Greenland snow and ice either. _Stop the lies!_
Such a great video, Adam, I learned so much! Not least how impressed I am that you can do a handstand on a skateboard, aaaand... how entertaining watching you watch a rock is. Here's to another 50k (and beyond!) 🥳
Question for you and Adam. What's your opinion on the recent survey conducted by The Guardian, where: "Almost 80% of the respondents, all from the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), foresee at least 2.5C of global heating, while almost half anticipate at least 3C (5.4F). Only 6% thought the internationally agreed 1.5C (2.7F) limit would be met." Thanks in advance.
my feeling is that that reflects scientists' perspective on the state of climate action, not something that is inevitable given our climate system. and so it points out just how much work we still have to do to align action with what we know we need to do to keep our planet (relatively) safe
@@ClimateAdam I'd have to disagree on that one. With people the way they are, the lives they want and the stuff they want. Big houses, nice cars, holidays abroad, meat and dairy consumption. African nations who feel they have a right to develop their fossil fuel resources to get people out of poverty. Due to human nature, I think the climate scientists in this survey are saying these figures are inevitable. Let's be honest here, a large percentage of the population don't want to give up those things, and those in developing countries want access to them.
Great video Adam! It is important for people to realise that net-zero doesn't reverse climate change or reduce impacts, but marks the top level of continuous destruction, if we are lucky with tipping points. It's important so that 10 years after net-zero, people don't say 'well that didn't work, lets re-open the coal mines".
Congratulations on 50K! (also on the handstand - amazing). Thank you for putting perspective on how important our current actions are. No time for getting depressed, we must keep changing for the better! Great video!
Hi Adam, you and Catherine Hayhoe are a lifeline to so many of us out here. I don't want to put too much pressure on you but you cannot stop lol. Keep teaching keep inspiring we need you. And we will do our part energize by your work.
I am far more worried about short-term climate change than long-term change - & so are the people who live in historically hot countries, which are now getting even hotter & drier, even faster, for more extended spells. Sea level rise is also threatening some communities NOW.
Thanks for this. Wasn't sure about the time line for a reversal of climate change, but knew it wasn't soon. I've tried explaining it to people and most don't get it. Oh well. And that skateboard bit was awesomely impressive.
I'm a bit perplexed, Dr Levy. It's generally accepted that currently about half of our total CO2 emissions are absorbed by the natural 'sinks', yes? If we achieve net zero emissions by 2050 does this not mean that the sinks would start absorbing the excess CO2 we have put up there at about the rate of our current emissions? According to this logic, this means after a few decades we could be back at atmospheric levels like we had in the 70's/80's.... I did once ask Dr Richard Alley this question at the end of a climate science course I did and he chose it as the most 'interesting' out of all those submitted by course participants.
I love to observe how this channel becomes a blockbuster with Tom Scott style montage and cool visualisations. Actually I do not watch channels like this but the climate topic is my the biggest panic point about our future and maybe these videos have to be understandable for anybody.
How many tipping points did you reach before you nailed that handstand? Good vid, showing how our little lives matter more than ever, since we live in this time of rapid change.
+0..04°C per year is the internationally-accepted standard. *It will be 1000 years before Seattle is 'CLIMATE BOILING!' Delhi,* ... and yet magically, 33,000,000 Delhians do fine! It's 32°C today.
Today's decision makers are each and every one of us and some us that were alive 10/20/30/40 years ago, and carried on consuming at similar levels, relying on our governments to solve the climate problem are in fact already dead due to climate change and more of us will die due to climate change, just not enough of us to make us all change our ways. Only a miniscule number of people have really made significant changes to their lives to dramatically reduce their C02 emissions (I am not one of them even though I drive an electric car.). It is already clear that our children and future generation will have to spend a lot more of their time indoors to escape the heat. It is a sad fact that after each and every COP meeting the worlds CO2 emissions have increased.
Thanks for such great information, Adam! You're one of several reasons I'm going back to college at 60 (I never finished a degree) for a degree in environmental science.
--> Congrats, Adam, on the 50K CliMate milestone! And thanks, as always, for the thought-provoking video. I thought you were joking about the handstand. Impressive! ... As for our deep climate future, I still remain hopeful that carbon capture and sequestration may evolve into something significant. . . . .
During the history of our species, for 100k years, humanity actually were reduced to only about 1200 individuals. Also due to climate change (allbeit natural, not man made). Something similar could happen again. Also, I just started studying science, so suddenly I can keep up a bit better when listening to you talk. :) Something I can recommend to anyone feeling abit unsure of how it all works.
@@Babesinthewood97 This means that you are miscalculating the future if you rely on past experience. If you want to understand the risks of climate change (&species extinction) -> you have to take politics, sociology and economics into account - otherwise you get a completely distorted (trivializing) picture. These risks are more like multiplying...
If you extrapolate the last 150 years of growth out 4centuries, the waste heat from all of our heat engines will raise the temp to the boiling point. (Tom Murphy: Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist) Of course, this both will not and cannot happen. But it is interesting nonetheless. Extrapolating the past into the future also causes all kinds of absurd results. A mere century will probably see the peak and the start of the decline of most essential minerals. Already the average yield grade of most materials have fallen precipitously. We're already removing multiple tons of material to get a pound of copper, well under 1%. Some will not peak any time soon, but much will, particularly accounting for growth. It's not like we are mining at a constant rate. Every year it is expected more will be produced than last year. Someone did the calculations around copper and found it would take 300 plus years at the current rate of extraction to entirely replace our existing power generation with windmills (but I don't know if that includes using recycled copper from our old generators.) That is not counting all the high grade (99.999%) copper which will be needed to convert everything oil does now with electricity (replacing an ICE engine with an electric one)
Maybe not the best thing to get caught up in trying to pin down the next "ice age". So dislike that last term as people use it in more than one meaning. Regardless, Pleistocene glacial cycles are clearly disrupted and we do not know if they will ever return. Earth's orbit may be one driver of the periodicity and depth of ice advances and retreats but we know that the changes (pre-industrialization) cannot be determined by orbit alone. Internal variation due to the sheer complexity of the planet comes into play. And given we will likely cause the melting of most ice on Greenland and West Antarctica, and perhaps East Antarctica, we could be looking at a scenario where a Pleistocene-style ice age isn't going to happen for millions of years.
Certainly, we 'could' be a society that is kinder to the climate and environment at large. But you can see from the type of advertisements that accompany every page on the internet, newspaper, or every 5 minutes on a tv broadcast that this is definitely not what big business wants, and it's what governments continue to allow. And because of this contradiction, most people will instantly forget their concerns for the environment when tempted with glossy travel ads, the latest fashion in clothes and cars, make up, more plastic toys, new tech, fast food, and countless other things we really don't need. Most people act like children, purchasing little fragments of joy, brightening unhappy moments and ordinary moments with more purchased joy, feeding industry for brief wonder - bevause they've lost thevwonder that the rnvironment used to give to us all. Now it's becoming our enemy, and youvsee under a lot of these climate change videos that a lot of people don't blame their activities at all. They put it down to their particular god's anger, revenge or to some government plan. It's amazing what denial and indoctrination will do, but not in a helpful way.
100% agree with everything you've said here, and I think we don't have any choice but to very slowly and painfully change it and go back to that time where most people could actually appreciate and respect the world around them. I don't see how we survive if that doesn't happen
Another excellent video Adam. Looks like a whole lot of climate adaptation is going to be needed for some time. Huge congrats on the 50k subs, and on the awesome handstand!
I may be a sadist for saying this... but we get what we deserve. I'm furious that our society has pushed us to this point, but I'm excited for the challenge of the future! I'm a survivor and I've learned that things never turn out as bad as our fears lead us to believe. I know and trust that we survivors who want a better society will make one that includes the care of the Earth as an integral part~ It's just going to take time as we battle 'The Resistance'. 💪😏
Replant according to what baseline in time? Arctic coast had trees before the ice age Sahara can't sustain greenery like it did during Era of Gilgamesh. Was a skooch warmer then
Dint forget grasslands etc. Also, a real, functional forest is a complex ecosystem hundreds of years old... not a plantation of one, often non-native, species covering vast portions of land without much biodiversity or ecosystem services
Reforestation is huge. But like others have mentioned, biodiversity is going to be the real key. Complex ecosystems are going to be more resilient to changes in climate. Additionally, planting a tree is one thing. But ongoing care to ensure the survival and establishment of a system is also very important. Planting trees is only the beginning. This isn’t to say we shouldn’t do it. But we also need ongoing thoughtful stewardship of these new forests.
@@zerkig9058 wouldn't mind seeing a general compare & contrast of forest vs C4 Grasslands on a variety of metrics Usually not an either or proposition as Steppe and Prairie is usually seen where too arid, windy or fire prone to support trees. Forest is Apex ecology of all terrestrial biomes if inputs are sufficient to support them Agree, I'd have a regulation that 20% of a block is a second tree species; preferably one with seed or fruit of interest to wildlife, rather than industry preferred conifers
There's been too much "by the end of the century" estimates in articles about climate change when what needs to be looked at is the end of 500 to 5000 years.
Most humans don’t care about things ten years down the road, much less the year 2100. If you’re wanting people to adjust their actions by thinking about things thousands of years from now, that’s not going to happen.
But even if we stop emitting now, we are already at 1.5° C global warming. And since this is pure wishful thinking, it is obvious that we will reach 2-3° C. And then stay with that for the next 10.000 years? Humanity will have to begin to think seriously about climate geoengineering. If we like it or not, this is an inevitable future.
I think it will take millions of years for Co2 to go down to pre-industrial levels, because our emissions and eventually natural emissions from feedbacks are far from over
@@andremattsson so 5 to 10 billion tons removed in the 25 years it takes to reach that, we'll emmit atleast 400 billion tons in the same timeframe, so i don't think there will be people left to remove Co2 after that
There are fast growing aggressive plants which are considered a plague. I think we should let suitable ones grow world wide on useless land. Yes, we want to protect biodiversity and buildings (roots). For the latter, we need new to develop new AI drones who can dig, situate the root center and deliver some glyphosate. We next harness continuously all the biomass of those pest plants and make biochar with it and perhaps some gas too. Trees grow too slow and need better land too. Of course the sea must be examined too for suitable seaweeds. Even with such global effort, I suppose it would take long to remove some carbon this way but the climate could change too because of the plant growth, on short term already.
Dr. Levi, could you clarify something for me? I was under the impression that about 20% or so of the observed warming is caused by our excess methane emissions and that in absence of ongoing methane emissions that the short half life of methane in our atmosphere means that, assuming zero to net negative human anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, within 20 years or so the observed warming caused by methane (about 20%) would resolve and reverse. Do I have this wrong, sir?
What does methane break down into when bombarded with high speed particles? Do you know? It actually breaks down into CO2. CO2 is the primary driver of climate change, so reductions in methane would only slightly reduce warming.
@@jaykanta4326well it is more potent while it is CH4 as the CO2 bandwidth of infra-red is comparatively saturated. Cleaner air from combined GW induced de-desertification (dust) and fewer smokestacks 🏭 in post NZ will have brighter hotter days than used to Statistical game when lower night Temps offset it
not wrong at all that methane is short lived! but it's not the only thing that reduces in the atmosphere when we stop emitting. aerosols do too, and since they have a cooling effect overall, stopping them would effectively lead to more warming. in short.. if we stop emitting everything, temperatures more or less stabilise. all this is discussed more here: ruclips.net/video/Q3Gol-EK1uE/видео.html
Don't quite understand why you showed nuclear power plants being demolished while saying; (once we stop emitting)? Nuclear power plants don't produce green house gases. But it was an otherwise good video.
those aren't nuclear powerplants. thermal powerplants (including fossil fuel power plants) generally have cooling towers. they're not exclusive to nuclear power, and I think that association is mostly down to the Simpsons.
Great video Adam! I really appreciate your outlook at the end. We need to strive for the kind of society you describe. Some will say it’s hopeless. But we’ve got to try. Thanks for all the work you’re doing!
Hi Adam, Feeling powerless is not a real rationale when simple life-style changes are always possible - not enough to reverse things that had already passed their tipping-points before our birth(s), but still, the right thing to do so as to NOT feel powerless! Professor-Marty.
thank you Adam for these nice informative videos, we don't have so much hope that anyone would do something about climate change, hopefully when fire and flood and famine reaches the US/Canada they will start thinking about it
Siri, lPCC says the atmosphere is heating at +1.8°C by 2100. How much is that per year? Siri: I'm glad you asked that. It will heat at approximately +0.023°C per year. Siri, how many years will it take before Seattle becomes as warm as Delhi from atmosphere warming. Siri: Let me find out. It is 12°C in Seattle today and 30°C in Delhi. Then at +0.023°C per year hearing rate, *it will be 782 years before Seattle is as hot as Delhi.*
Adam, an excellent message, but how do we know that CO2 will eventually stabilize at the holocene level of ~280ppm, rather than higher or lower? i.e., was the Holocene a lucky accident?
Climate change is "sustainable". Since the awakening of environmentalists (1960's), a new term was made to quiet the public reactions regarding businesses destroying our planet. "Sustainable". Once that word was brought out by the "experts" we would believe them, relax completely about the issue and forget about after a few months. Every time any business wanted to "get around" anyone challenging their destruction of our planet, the word sustainable was "chirped" and all was well... but it never was, never! The word sustainable morphed into a metaphor meaning "Kicking the can way the hell down the road out of sight and mind. I'm waiting for the "experts" to tell us climate change is sustainable and the best choice to advance human populations.
not that i'm advocating this as a wish and hope policy - but is it possible that the glacial cycle might possibly contain positive feed back loops that we know nothing about - possibly concerning water vapour levels (the biggest greenhouse culprit but never really talked about) - just a thought.
(1) How long will it take for the excess ocean heat content to dissipate into the atmosphere ? (2) If we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, self-reinforcing feedbacks from excess ocean heat content will continue for millennia, so is it realistic to even try predicting how long it would take for the Earth Energy Imbalance to reach equilibrium? (3) If we are relying on enhanced "weathering" to drawdown our total cumulation of CO2 then surely we shall be forced to deploy SRM geoengineering constantly to offset the excess Earth Energy Imbalance & cool the planet ?
But yes, there will be a secondary warm peaking assuming we cool after NZ Eventually atmo over sea surface is so cold the ocean releases heat to maintain balance. Century or millennial scale
Possible is entirely a different thing from Probable. Will we unite together to create a balanced society and apply our technology to restore environmental stability? It is possible; but given our history not very probable. It is more probable that a small subset of us will find a way to adapt to the environmental changes and learn to survive in a less than hospitable world. That is something we've done before.
Something doesn't ring true, with the time it will take to eliminate the CO2. Volcanoes have been putting CO2 into the atmosphere for a very long time, if it takes thousands of years to eliminate the CO2 then surely there would have been an accumulation, which, i don't think, is the case (not suggesting they are worse than humans). Is there the possibility, that another phenomenon is responsible for regulating the CO2, and we don't know or understand how, and to what degree it is reducing CO2?
as said in the video, we have (in a century and a half) raised CO2 higher than it has been in our atmosphere for millions of years. so this is way out of the balance of the planet's normal CO2 cycling (which - yes - includes volcanoes)
@@ClimateAdam If i remember correctly, we were being told "scientists are surprised" by the speed at which the air cleared, when we put in place lockdowns for coronavirus. My logic tells me that this means, there is something going on with the chemistry of the atmosphere, that we don't fully understand. My thoughts are that, maybe, there is some kind of feedback loop, that is slowing down the process of eliminating the CO2, that has been triggered by the colossal amounts we have emitted over the last 150 years. If by some miracle we did stop emitting the quantities we currently are, and have been for decades, the feedback loop would no longer exist, or would be turned back off, and the elimination process would re-establish it's pre industrial revolution rates.
How much CO2 do volcanos put in the atmosphere? And how does that compare to the amount of CO2 we release from burning fossil fuels? Consider for example the last Yellowstone eruption, 640,000 years ago. Yellowstone is one of the largest volcanos in the world, but its CO2 barely blipped the historic record. For the past 800,000 years (the extent of really good CO2 records from ice cores), it has stayed between 170-300ppm. In recent times before the Industrial Revolution, it was around 280ppm. It is currently over 420ppm, and rising at close to 3ppm/year. We have increased atmospheric CO2 by 50% globally in less than two centuries. Volcanos simply do not compare.
@@davestagner Which bit about "(not suggesting they are worse than humans)", is it you don't understand? My point is, if it has stayed between 170-300 ppm for the last 800 000 years, and every time a volcano erupts, it takes 10s of thousands of years, why has it not been steadily increasing before we started dramatically increasing the CO2, bearing in mind we put more than the volcanoes, because volcanoes don't put as much as humans, because humans are bad volcanoes good? I am not questioning the stupid humans contributing to a problem we wouldn't have if humans weren't as stupid and only volcanoes existed. I am questioning the validity of the argument that it would take so long for mother nature to re stabilise the levels to the pre industrial levels, of 170-300 ppm. It wouldn't be the first time in the history of science that the models turn out to be talking nonsense, because we forgot to put a factor we didn't think to be playing a role.
Can you discuss the resource dilemma of fossil fuels and how long it may be that we can continue utilizing carbon emitting technology before it becomes unloveable on what seems to be a very large area of the middle of the planet over the next few hundred years? Or could you review the work of a scientist already examining such mining and material extraction capacities?
I'm agnostic on this, (cause I'm a layman) but doesn't the notion that when we stop emitting, the carbon sinks balance out the effects the residual carbon in the atmosphere assume the aerosol masking effect is negligible?
Yes, but timescale is debatable. One Spanish paper found CO2 pulses in Cretaceous were absorbed within a millennium If correct could be ~300ppm by Y3K 🎉
That notion focuses on CO2. But if you take both cutting out aerosols and methane into account (not just aerosols) the picture is similar. Check the video I linked to at that point in the vid.
I would guess a million years for all the ice to return. Well, the equivalent amount of ice, at any rate. 🤦♀️✨ Wow! I thought that you were kidding about the handstand. Definitely the skateboard. Damn Skippy! 👍💫💥
What I don’t get is the idea electric vehicles are going to solve the problem. The fuel it takes to mine these precious metals to make the batteries is astounding.mining equipment can guzzle hundreds of gallons of diesel in a 24 hour period but that part seems to be out of sight out of mind with environmentalists.
while the extraction of precious metals is absolutely harmful (environmentally and in terms of social impact), it absolutely does not cause more ghg emissions than ICEs. there's lots on this, but here's an example: www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-how-electric-vehicles-help-to-tackle-climate-change/ so EVs are def an improvement, but they're also def not problem free. which is why many argue that solutions like public transportation, cycling infrastructure, more walkable cities, need to be also be implemented.
@@ClimateAdam whoever is looking at that is dead wrong. a ford explorer lets say take the yearly emissions from that vehicle. Next take the yearly emissions from lets say a D9 dozer i guarantee yo that vehicle emitted more greenhouse gases in a years time. So to say mining operations that operate 24/7 dosen't emit as much is just people burying their heads in the sand. Im sorry I see absolutely no way we can live a modern life without fossil fuel.
Fun fact: climate and weather aren't the same and you certainly can make accurate climate predictions further out. Don't believe me? Then that means you genuinely don't know whether next January is going to be hotter than next July in Canada
I'm going to check back in on this channel in exactly 35,000 years from today. If any of your predictions are incorrect I will be reporting this as misinformation.
for sure - actively removing CO2 from the atmosphere would help undo some of the warming (and associated issues), if we were removing more than we were causing. some things (notably tipping elements) would not reverse, though.
Geologic time is a foreign concept to the people that are typically saying “ I’ve come to this beach for 30 years and nothing has changed“ we are beyond help at this point. Even if they did agree that we are causing damage that far in the future. The next sentence out of their mouth would probably be. Oh I don’t care. I’m not gonna be here anyway.
LN2 energy storage from renewables might be the best carbon capture technology as the entire process will create dry ice that can captured and stored elsewhere. All other forms of carbon capture appears to be vaporware.
Our earth is in a CO2 drought. That's why I do everything I can to increase my CO2 output, as everyone should. Do your part to make our planet greener and more comfortable. Consider driving somewhere just for the heck of it. It's really that easy.
Don't worry. Eventually those little micro bugs will eventually get us all. Little unseen bugs are much more dangerous than anything else we could imagine. let's halve our population over the next 100 years.
11:00 Why did yo show a video of a demolition of a nuclear power plant while saying "how quickly we will stop emitting"? It looks like you associated the CO2 emissions to nuclear energy, but that's not right: nuclear energy is one of the cleanest energy sources, it emits even less amounts of CO2 than solar energy and it is on par with wind energy.
Those are the cooling towers of a fossil fuel plant. Cooling towers are used in general for all thermal power plants, and are not specific to nuclear (but I think the simpsons maybe gave everyone that idea)
@@ClimateAdam Oh ok, my mistake. I thought that because I've already seen this kind of association, and I've even seen a representation of cooling towers with black smoke coming out of them to represent a nuclear plant, once. Anyway thank you for answering!
I keep hearing that the planet will survive but we may not. Now that you have shown what could happen for 50,000 years with CO2 could you also provide some information on what sort of life could survive. Not for 50,000 years of turmoil of course, by then everything will be back to, I'm guessing our year 1800 or so. Just jump ahead perhaps only 40,000 years and lets see what's left. Certainly not us nor any other relatively large species in my opinion.
Ice age in 50-120k years? Don’t think so, winter is coming sooner….. much sooner. Even so a lot of our mingling will linger on till the next interglacial some 120k years from now!
In 10,000 years, the human population will be in the trillions, and most will live off the Earth, on other planets, moons, asteroids, space stations, and some will be on 10,000-year journeys to other star systems.
Two thirds of USA is in coastal cities. But, please, keep denying. I guess I'll move to AZ (where it is already *hot,* so what's the 4-5 degrees) and watch y'all try and figure it out LOL.
Serious question from a mainly solar charged E bike rider who as a family have gone to one used E.V soon to be camper van and have not taken flights for nearly 5 years, and have committed to various solar challenges ( garden pond, our phones lap tops and bikes and the entire stables) as well as considering most purchases from a resources perspective along with sustainability and packaging etc. Does new CO2 from alcohol production, yeast for bread making , carbonated drinks and the likes enter into the equation at all? I have often wondered this, Thanks in advance and thank you for your videos. Also it baffles me how many people have no idea bottle banks exists and that glass should be re used or recycled. Ed
Hi Dr. Levy! I'm curious about the psychology of climate change. If I said we'll probably see warming accelerate exponentially and we're certain to hit 10+ degrees of warming by the end of the century and Earth will become Venus 2.0, this comment would probably get a hundred upvotes. But if said there's a great chance we'll be able to limit warming to 2 degrees, I'd get laughed off the channel. Why do we tend to gravitate toward the worst possible climate predictions? Do people just like the idea of humanity going extinct in the next ten years even though models don't support that conclusion?
Venus isn't hot at the surface because of CO2. It's hot at the surface because of other factors. Mainly because of density. Venus' atmosphere at the surface is 54 times denser than Earth's. So it has 54 times the mass per unit volume. In other words, 54 times the number of molecules with translational and rotational energy...HEAT! Also, by about 6km above the surface, CO2 on Venus becomes a supercritical fluid. It has about 25% less heat capacity than CO2 on Earth, so it takes less energy to change its temperature. Fact is, the first 6km of atmosphere on Venus is more than likely just an extension of the planets geothermal gradient. If you want to know what CO2 is actually doing on Venus, find the temperature of the atmosphere where air pressure is 1bar and get back with me. You can find it under Venus Temperature and Pressure Profiles.
As Jimmy pointed out, you don't understand climate. A 2.5 deg C warming of the globe will cause drastic change to society and will harm massive numbers of people. The rise in sea level, the increase in wet-bulb temperature events in cities that aren't prepared, the drastic changes in precipitation and so on is already significant, and will only get worse. There is no getting better for any of it. The best case can only happen if we stop emitting CO2, absolutely, today. That's not going to happen, so we really don't know how bad it's going to be, but it's going to be much worse in the near future. That's not doomsaying, that's an accurate, but vague description. I doubt you actually understand much about psychology, either.
@@jaykanta4326 Absolutely not. Climate change is real and dangerous. Some of my personal projects include designing optimal cities as well as power grids that run exclusively on renewables and battery storage. (It's a fun hobby! Even though I'm not a professional.) However. I don't agree with the notion that warming is _guaranteed_ to accelerate wildly even if we cut emissions tomorrow, and thus climate change is _guaranteed_ to kill us all. If the slightest twinge of optimism in a sea of fatalistic doomerism makes me a denialist, then I'm not sure what to say.
thank you for 50k! and thank you to all the patrons who made this possible! www.patreon.com/ClimateAdam - not only do they support the channel, but they get sneak peeks of videos like this and exclusive content (wanna see all the failed skateboarding attempts anyone??)
In the early 2000s I experienced the third Canary in the coal mine. The rising Arctic temperatures were allowing the mountain pine beetle to survive and within a few short years the mountain beetle consume 75 million hectares of forest. That is equivalent to the entire Forest canopy of Washington and Oregon combined
Here. Let me set up a thought experiment for you. So, let's imagine there's a special planet that has no greenhouse gases in its atmosphere and the surface only radiates one wavelength of infrared. Let's say it's 15 microns.
At present, 100% of the energy in that wavelength is being radiated to space. None of it is being absorbed by the atmosphere.
In this situation, adding a gas that absorbs that wavelength will add energy to the atmosphere. So, let's add 25ppm of Scary Dioxide. Now the atmosphere is absorbing 50% of the energy in that band of IR and 50% is still being radiated to space.
Just like before, adding a higher percentage of Scary Dioxide will add more energy to the atmosphere since 50% of the energy is still making it to space.
So, let's move up to 50ppm. Now, the atmosphere is absorbing 100% of the energy and none of the energy is making it to space.
In this last situation, adding a higher percentage of the gas does NOTHING. ALL the energy coming from the ground is ALREADY being absorbed. The gas is LIMITED OUT.
There are two exceptions--the ground would need to radiate more energy, since it's ENERGY that heats things, or the gas would need to make the atmosphere denser.
Now that you know how the greenhouse effect works, here's the basic guidelines:
1. If a gas absorbs a wavelength of infrared that's being radiated from the SURFACE to SPACE, even if it's just a small percentage, that gas will add energy to the atmosphere.
2. If a gas absorbs a wavelength of infrared that's NOT being radiated from the SURFACE to SPACE, in other words, some component of the atmosphere is already absorbing ALL the energy, then that gas does nothing. It's limited out.
In the case of CO2, it absorbs 4 wavelengths strongly; 2.0 microns, 2.7 microns, 4.25 microns, and 15 microns. Of those 4 bands, only the 15-micron band has any energy. However, across those 4, the surface radiates both in the center of the bands and on the shoulders of the bands, about 3.4 watts/sqm/str. Not a lot of energy there.
As for pathlengths, which is the distance EM radiation travels through an absorbing medium, they are ALL very short. In the center of the bands, from the surface, about 10 meters (25 to 30 feet). On the shoulders of the bands, about 300 meters. So, by 300 meters, ALL that energy is absorbed.
Carbon dioxide is limited out.
As for carbon dioxide behaving like a blanket or some type of insulation, it does not. Energy transfer through the gas is substantial. It has translational and rotational components that will transfer kinetic energy and it has the vibrational component that transfers energy via resonance. (Keep in mind that the vibrational component is an internal energy and is NOT heat.)
For a real world application, you might contact a manufacturer of double-pane glass windows and suggest they start using CO2 between the panes since it's such a good insulator. When they finish chuckling, they'll explain that they use argon since it only has the translational component to transfer energy.
As for methane, it has long pathlengths. But is it adding that much energy to the atmosphere? It has two IR peaks, one at 7.65 microns, which is the most populated peak, and another at 3.31 microns.
A quick check of Boltzmann (statistical mechanics) shows that only .4% of methane is above ground state at the 7.65-micron peak and only about .0008% is above vibrational ground state at the 3.31-micron peak. So, it's not exactly adding much energy to the atmosphere.
If you don't know how to work those equations, I'll show you.
Summary of the main points:
2:50 Plants and the ocean absorb a lot of CO2 relatively quickly (centuries).
3:15 After that, the slower process of ocean sedimentation will take 10,000 years to reduce the CO2 we add to the atmosphere by 80%. 20% of the CO2 emitted will still be in the atmosphere after 10,000 years.
4:45 67% of the heating we cause will still be in the atmosphere after 10,000 years.
7:25 A 2° rise in temperatures will cause a half meter rise in sea levels by 2100, and a 10 meter rise in 10,000 years.
8:25 Because of the CO2 we've already added to the atmosphere, the next Ice age will start in 120,000 years instead of 50,000 years.
These projections could change with volcanic activity or a meteor strike.
To date NOT ONE of the official 37 odd climate models are accurate forward or backwards, so they invented 'forcing functions' rubbish. It will be 720 years before Miami and get their feet wet and 1000 years before Seattle is as hot as DeIhi. It's lovely 18°C in Seattle this mid-July evening.
What if we capture those CO2 and turn it into solid carbon and CO2.
If we can somehow reduce O2 levels to pre Industrialization would the temperature of atmosphere decrease?
@@JSM-bb80u What if we capture the carbon from our vehicle tailpipe and convert it to cheese-like substance. Then we can crumble it into our hemp-fiber shag rug, and snort it when we're high in CBD gummies, waiting for our government SNAP card!
Something to look forward too
2:50 yum yum yum
Never talk about 2100. We have less than 20 years left - 2100 is always mentioned to make it seem we have a long time to deal with the climate crisis - we don't. It's here NOW!
Or perhaps we shouldn't focus on any particular date at all, but rather that what we do today will have delayed consequences far into the future.
It's a bit terrifying to consider the reality that even if we stopped all emissions today, that heat energy would continue to accumulate for a long time before reaching a new equilibrium ...
That's like when half of humanity has been wiped out already...
I agree, I feel it's a complete waste of time allowing politicians to organise summits and just agree to set dates that are comfortably 'beyond' their expected governorship of their individual countries.
They pose grimly for the cameras, come home, do nothing (or nothing worthwhile), and forget all about 2035, 2060 or 2100. They know they won't be in power then, most likely, so it'll be someone else's problem.
Governments need to start today, working out 'how' to create green jobs, green industries, cleaning current industries, how to make restoration of the environment pay.
However, while politicians are chosen from people who worship money and economics above the environment, we're never going to get anywhere.
Considering the years since the pandemic, and how rapidly the environment has become much more extreme since that time, and how little has been done by any government, I wouldn't be surprised if very large numbers of humans started to expire within 5 years.
At the moment, people can still run from the floods, the wildfires, hide from the storms and hurricanes, even escape the droughts and wet bulb regions by moving about.
But the food growing regions cannot.
It's said there's going to be a large deficit in China's harvest this year, and other places around the world (eg. America's West) are expecting reduced harvest through drought, heatwaves and flood - and we're still in July. We've no idea what's coming for the rest of the season.
Please tell me after 20 years how your end of the world faring.
Humanity have already shown incredible adaptibility - we live on every continent (except the coldest one Antarctica. )
Global warming will not lower human population.
Global warming will not be a cause of extinction of human race.
Global warming will have beneficial effects for colonization, navigation and mining of North and South pole.
@@TheIgdrasil1
The most egregiously wrong thing you said; "[climate changing] will not cause decrease in human populations"
Brother, it already is, why do you think there's so many migrants?
The biggest long-term effect you really didn't cover: changes to the biome. *Our activities are causing extinction of some species* , as well as promoting some other species. These changes are going to ripple forward for as long as life can exist on this planet.
Not to mention the untold volumes of carbon bearing gases emitted from currently frozen masses.
Activities of a supervolcano were and will be causing mass extinction.
Activities of a asteroid, comet, were and will be causing mass extinction.
There were always extinctions, and life survived ultimately.
But activities of a carbon calcification and depoziting carbon dioxide will be causing mass extinction after 500 hundred million years from NOW- there will be no CO2! No photosynthesis. No life. Last extinction.
Life on this Earth have already limitation set in stone.
One billion years is enough. Dont worry, live your insignificant life, you and I we are just dust in the wind.
Every one of the millions of species alive today survived multiple 4000ppm epochs and several ice ages. Quit being such a drama queen.
@@phil20_20 *ANTI-Science DISINFORMATION.* There is no methane in permafrost. It melts every summer and then refreeze a month later. There is no methane in Greenland snow and ice either. _Stop the lies!_
@@robertmarmaduke186 "Every one of the millions of species alive today survived multiple 4000ppm epochs"
Such a great video, Adam, I learned so much! Not least how impressed I am that you can do a handstand on a skateboard, aaaand... how entertaining watching you watch a rock is. Here's to another 50k (and beyond!) 🥳
Question for you and Adam. What's your opinion on the recent survey conducted by The Guardian, where:
"Almost 80% of the respondents, all from the authoritative Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), foresee at least 2.5C of global heating, while almost half anticipate at least 3C (5.4F). Only 6% thought the internationally agreed 1.5C (2.7F) limit would be met."
Thanks in advance.
@@Richard482 it's overly optimistic
my feeling is that that reflects scientists' perspective on the state of climate action, not something that is inevitable given our climate system. and so it points out just how much work we still have to do to align action with what we know we need to do to keep our planet (relatively) safe
@@oleonard7319 😅
@@ClimateAdam I'd have to disagree on that one. With people the way they are, the lives they want and the stuff they want. Big houses, nice cars, holidays abroad, meat and dairy consumption. African nations who feel they have a right to develop their fossil fuel resources to get people out of poverty. Due to human nature, I think the climate scientists in this survey are saying these figures are inevitable. Let's be honest here, a large percentage of the population don't want to give up those things, and those in developing countries want access to them.
Not gonna lie. That skateboard trick was really impressive
not gunna lie... genuinely shocked myself that I can still land it
I did not expect that sick trick at the end, even though you said you would do it.
You are great ClimateAdam. Congratulations on 50K+!
Great video Adam! It is important for people to realise that net-zero doesn't reverse climate change or reduce impacts, but marks the top level of continuous destruction, if we are lucky with tipping points. It's important so that 10 years after net-zero, people don't say 'well that didn't work, lets re-open the coal mines".
Congratulations on 50K! (also on the handstand - amazing). Thank you for putting perspective on how important our current actions are. No time for getting depressed, we must keep changing for the better! Great video!
"Cutting edge technology" good pun
Thanks Adam very well put. Gonna listen again to take it all in. Keep spreading the message so more of us primates can be aware.
Hi Adam, you and Catherine Hayhoe are a lifeline to so many of us out here. I don't want to put too much pressure on you but you cannot stop lol. Keep teaching keep inspiring we need you. And we will do our part energize by your work.
Your best yet. And what a finish!
You deserve 500 Million Subscribers for what you are doing, and the knowledge you are sharing... Great work.
aw thank you! still genuinely thrilled to have 50k of you here!
50k subscribers! Congratulations Adam. Well deserved. Content that is easy to digest for all ages, and also very thoughtful. Keep it up! 👏🎉
Thank you for this video on long-term climate change. It’s such an important topic that’s not discussed often enough.
thanks Ingrid!
I am far more worried about short-term climate change than long-term change - & so are the people who live in historically hot countries, which are now getting even hotter & drier, even faster, for more extended spells. Sea level rise is also threatening some communities NOW.
Thanks for this. Wasn't sure about the time line for a reversal of climate change, but knew it wasn't soon. I've tried explaining it to people and most don't get it. Oh well. And that skateboard bit was awesomely impressive.
We don’t get it!!!! Is that a Punchline or Whaaaat!!!
But the other important message, not mentioned in the vid, is that further warming is expected to stop when net zero is reached.
Funnier video than normal.
And how far into the future will this insightfull video be seen? Perhaps this should be carved in stone.
I'm a bit perplexed, Dr Levy. It's generally accepted that currently about half of our total CO2 emissions are absorbed by the natural 'sinks', yes? If we achieve net zero emissions by 2050 does this not mean that the sinks would start absorbing the excess CO2 we have put up there at about the rate of our current emissions? According to this logic, this means after a few decades we could be back at atmospheric levels like we had in the 70's/80's.... I did once ask Dr Richard Alley this question at the end of a climate science course I did and he chose it as the most 'interesting' out of all those submitted by course participants.
I love to observe how this channel becomes a blockbuster with Tom Scott style montage and cool visualisations. Actually I do not watch channels like this but the climate topic is my the biggest panic point about our future and maybe these videos have to be understandable for anybody.
PS saw that sk8 trick, you are much cooler than Tom Scott!
He could nerd out more for likes of us but are good intro pieces. And yes fun
How many tipping points did you reach before you nailed that handstand? Good vid, showing how our little lives matter more than ever, since we live in this time of rapid change.
+0..04°C per year is the internationally-accepted standard. *It will be 1000 years before Seattle is 'CLIMATE BOILING!' Delhi,* ... and yet magically, 33,000,000 Delhians do fine! It's 32°C today.
a lot! in fact I'm gunna put together the outtakes vid for my patrons now!
Today's decision makers are each and every one of us and some us that were alive 10/20/30/40 years ago, and carried on consuming at similar levels, relying on our governments to solve the climate problem are in fact already dead due to climate change and more of us will die due to climate change, just not enough of us to make us all change our ways. Only a miniscule number of people have really made significant changes to their lives to dramatically reduce their C02 emissions (I am not one of them even though I drive an electric car.).
It is already clear that our children and future generation will have to spend a lot more of their time indoors to escape the heat.
It is a sad fact that after each and every COP meeting the worlds CO2 emissions have increased.
Thanks for such great information, Adam! You're one of several reasons I'm going back to college at 60 (I never finished a degree) for a degree in environmental science.
that's genuinely awesome to hear! hope you love the degree!
My mom is more or less doing the same thing! She's in her later 50s and is almost done with school studying environmental science :) You got this!
@@deadlyshizzno Tell your mom she's a rock star! And thanks. :)
--> Congrats, Adam, on the 50K CliMate milestone! And thanks, as always, for the thought-provoking video. I thought you were joking about the handstand. Impressive! ... As for our deep climate future, I still remain hopeful that carbon capture and sequestration may evolve into something significant. . . . .
During the history of our species, for 100k years, humanity actually were reduced to only about 1200 individuals. Also due to climate change (allbeit natural, not man made). Something similar could happen again. Also, I just started studying science, so suddenly I can keep up a bit better when listening to you talk. :) Something I can recommend to anyone feeling abit unsure of how it all works.
We have had no nukes of any kind back then.
@@volkerengels5298What?
@@Babesinthewood97
This means that you are miscalculating the future if you rely on past experience.
If you want to understand the risks of climate change (&species extinction) -> you have to take politics, sociology and economics into account - otherwise you get a completely distorted (trivializing) picture. These risks are more like multiplying...
@@volkerengels5298No need to mansplain something I never said!!
If you extrapolate the last 150 years of growth out 4centuries, the waste heat from all of our heat engines will raise the temp to the boiling point. (Tom Murphy: Exponential Economist Meets Finite Physicist) Of course, this both will not and cannot happen. But it is interesting nonetheless.
Extrapolating the past into the future also causes all kinds of absurd results. A mere century will probably see the peak and the start of the decline of most essential minerals. Already the average yield grade of most materials have fallen precipitously. We're already removing multiple tons of material to get a pound of copper, well under 1%. Some will not peak any time soon, but much will, particularly accounting for growth. It's not like we are mining at a constant rate. Every year it is expected more will be produced than last year.
Someone did the calculations around copper and found it would take 300 plus years at the current rate of extraction to entirely replace our existing power generation with windmills (but I don't know if that includes using recycled copper from our old generators.) That is not counting all the high grade (99.999%) copper which will be needed to convert everything oil does now with electricity (replacing an ICE engine with an electric one)
Maybe not the best thing to get caught up in trying to pin down the next "ice age". So dislike that last term as people use it in more than one meaning. Regardless, Pleistocene glacial cycles are clearly disrupted and we do not know if they will ever return. Earth's orbit may be one driver of the periodicity and depth of ice advances and retreats but we know that the changes (pre-industrialization) cannot be determined by orbit alone. Internal variation due to the sheer complexity of the planet comes into play. And given we will likely cause the melting of most ice on Greenland and West Antarctica, and perhaps East Antarctica, we could be looking at a scenario where a Pleistocene-style ice age isn't going to happen for millions of years.
Certainly, we 'could' be a society that is kinder to the climate and environment at large.
But you can see from the type of advertisements that accompany every page on the internet, newspaper, or every 5 minutes on a tv broadcast that this is definitely not what big business wants, and it's what governments continue to allow.
And because of this contradiction, most people will instantly forget their concerns for the environment when tempted with glossy travel ads, the latest fashion in clothes and cars, make up, more plastic toys, new tech, fast food, and countless other things we really don't need.
Most people act like children, purchasing little fragments of joy, brightening unhappy moments and ordinary moments with more purchased joy, feeding industry for brief wonder - bevause they've lost thevwonder that the rnvironment used to give to us all. Now it's becoming our enemy, and youvsee under a lot of these climate change videos that a lot of people don't blame their activities at all. They put it down to their particular god's anger, revenge or to some government plan. It's amazing what denial and indoctrination will do, but not in a helpful way.
100% agree with everything you've said here, and I think we don't have any choice but to very slowly and painfully change it and go back to that time where most people could actually appreciate and respect the world around them. I don't see how we survive if that doesn't happen
Another excellent video Adam. Looks like a whole lot of climate adaptation is going to be needed for some time. Huge congrats on the 50k subs, and on the awesome handstand!
thank you Dennis!
I may be a sadist for saying this... but we get what we deserve. I'm furious that our society has pushed us to this point, but I'm excited for the challenge of the future! I'm a survivor and I've learned that things never turn out as bad as our fears lead us to believe. I know and trust that we survivors who want a better society will make one that includes the care of the Earth as an integral part~ It's just going to take time as we battle 'The Resistance'. 💪😏
What if we replanted all of the forests everywhere all at once?
Replant according to what baseline in time?
Arctic coast had trees before the ice age
Sahara can't sustain greenery like it did during Era of Gilgamesh. Was a skooch warmer then
Dint forget grasslands etc. Also, a real, functional forest is a complex ecosystem hundreds of years old... not a plantation of one, often non-native, species covering vast portions of land without much biodiversity or ecosystem services
Reforestation is huge. But like others have mentioned, biodiversity is going to be the real key. Complex ecosystems are going to be more resilient to changes in climate.
Additionally, planting a tree is one thing. But ongoing care to ensure the survival and establishment of a system is also very important. Planting trees is only the beginning. This isn’t to say we shouldn’t do it. But we also need ongoing thoughtful stewardship of these new forests.
@@zerkig9058 wouldn't mind seeing a general compare & contrast of forest vs C4 Grasslands on a variety of metrics
Usually not an either or proposition as Steppe and Prairie is usually seen where too arid, windy or fire prone to support trees.
Forest is Apex ecology of all terrestrial biomes if inputs are sufficient to support them
Agree, I'd have a regulation that 20% of a block is a second tree species; preferably one with seed or fruit of interest to wildlife, rather than industry preferred conifers
@@JumpingSpider37 once established are good to go but the early years do require follow up care 👨🍼
Keep up the good work Adam.
What's the point of even living.... I ask myself that every day ever since becoming aware of climate change
There's been too much "by the end of the century" estimates in articles about climate change when what needs to be looked at is the end of 500 to 5000 years.
Most humans don’t care about things ten years down the road, much less the year 2100. If you’re wanting people to adjust their actions by thinking about things thousands of years from now, that’s not going to happen.
But even if we stop emitting now, we are already at 1.5° C global warming. And since this is pure wishful thinking, it is obvious that we will reach 2-3° C. And then stay with that for the next 10.000 years? Humanity will have to begin to think seriously about climate geoengineering. If we like it or not, this is an inevitable future.
We haven't averaged 1.5°C, only just this and last year. That's only a trend so far... 🤪🥵
We all wish you had 5 mil subscribers!
ahh you're too kind! but I'm seriously so chuffed to have 50k of you lovely CliMates!
I think it will take millions of years for Co2 to go down to pre-industrial levels, because our emissions and eventually natural emissions from feedbacks are far from over
Not if we remove it with DAC? It might only take another 100-150 years for co2 to reach normal levels again.
@@andremattsson i don't see that happening
@@DecadeAgoGaming I think it's the most likely scenario. We are on a trajectory to reach over 1 billion tons by 2050
@@andremattsson so that's another 25 years of Co2 buildup from human sources alone, there won't be a civilization left to operate those DACs
@@andremattsson so 5 to 10 billion tons removed in the 25 years it takes to reach that, we'll emmit atleast 400 billion tons in the same timeframe, so i don't think there will be people left to remove Co2 after that
There are fast growing aggressive plants which are considered a plague. I think we should let suitable ones grow world wide on useless land. Yes, we want to protect biodiversity and buildings (roots). For the latter, we need new to develop new AI drones who can dig, situate the root center and deliver some glyphosate. We next harness continuously all the biomass of those pest plants and make biochar with it and perhaps some gas too. Trees grow too slow and need better land too. Of course the sea must be examined too for suitable seaweeds. Even with such global effort, I suppose it would take long to remove some carbon this way but the climate could change too because of the plant growth, on short term already.
Dr. Levi, could you clarify something for me? I was under the impression that about 20% or so of the observed warming is caused by our excess methane emissions and that in absence of ongoing methane emissions that the short half life of methane in our atmosphere means that, assuming zero to net negative human anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, within 20 years or so the observed warming caused by methane (about 20%) would resolve and reverse.
Do I have this wrong, sir?
What does methane break down into when bombarded with high speed particles? Do you know?
It actually breaks down into CO2. CO2 is the primary driver of climate change, so reductions in methane would only slightly reduce warming.
@@jaykanta4326well it is more potent while it is CH4 as the CO2 bandwidth of infra-red is comparatively saturated.
Cleaner air from combined GW induced de-desertification (dust) and fewer smokestacks 🏭 in post NZ will have brighter hotter days than used to
Statistical game when lower night Temps offset it
@@DrSmooth2000 citations required. You won’t bring any
@@DrSmooth2000 As I figured, no citations to back up your claims of "saturation" or evidence of "statistical games".
Try not to lie so much.
not wrong at all that methane is short lived! but it's not the only thing that reduces in the atmosphere when we stop emitting. aerosols do too, and since they have a cooling effect overall, stopping them would effectively lead to more warming. in short.. if we stop emitting everything, temperatures more or less stabilise. all this is discussed more here:
ruclips.net/video/Q3Gol-EK1uE/видео.html
Don't quite understand why you showed nuclear power plants being demolished while saying; (once we stop emitting)? Nuclear power plants don't produce green house gases. But it was an otherwise good video.
those aren't nuclear powerplants. thermal powerplants (including fossil fuel power plants) generally have cooling towers. they're not exclusive to nuclear power, and I think that association is mostly down to the Simpsons.
@@ClimateAdam My mistake.
Great video Adam! I really appreciate your outlook at the end. We need to strive for the kind of society you describe. Some will say it’s hopeless. But we’ve got to try. Thanks for all the work you’re doing!
thanks so much for being a part of this channel! it really means so much to have voices like yours here!
Hi Adam,
Feeling powerless is not a real rationale when simple life-style changes are always possible - not enough to reverse things that had already passed their tipping-points before our birth(s), but still, the right thing to do so as to NOT feel powerless!
Professor-Marty.
thank you Adam for these nice informative videos, we don't have so much hope that anyone would do something about climate change, hopefully when fire and flood and famine reaches the US/Canada they will start thinking about it
Siri, lPCC says the atmosphere is heating at +1.8°C by 2100. How much is that per year?
Siri: I'm glad you asked that. It will heat at approximately +0.023°C per year.
Siri, how many years will it take before Seattle becomes as warm as Delhi from atmosphere warming.
Siri: Let me find out. It is 12°C in Seattle today and 30°C in Delhi. Then at +0.023°C per year hearing rate, *it will be 782 years before Seattle is as hot as Delhi.*
Never realised how BUFF you are Adam!!
Adam, an excellent message, but how do we know that CO2 will eventually stabilize at the holocene level of ~280ppm, rather than higher or lower? i.e., was the Holocene a lucky accident?
Thanks and congrats! 👍🖖
I really hope it does not take more than 100 years to refine nuclear and carbon capture to a point we can make a proper meaningful impact.
Climate change is "sustainable". Since the awakening of environmentalists (1960's), a new term was made to quiet the public reactions regarding businesses destroying our planet. "Sustainable".
Once that word was brought out by the "experts" we would believe them, relax completely about the issue and forget about after a few months.
Every time any business wanted to "get around" anyone challenging their destruction of our planet, the word sustainable was "chirped" and all was well... but it never was, never!
The word sustainable morphed into a metaphor meaning "Kicking the can way the hell down the road out of sight and mind.
I'm waiting for the "experts" to tell us climate change is sustainable and the best choice to advance human populations.
Why don’t climate scientists ever talk about Earth’s temperature will be based on current CO2 in atmosphere?
not that i'm advocating this as a wish and hope policy - but is it possible that the glacial cycle might possibly contain positive feed back loops that we know nothing about - possibly concerning water vapour levels (the biggest greenhouse culprit but never really talked about) - just a thought.
I would guess a million years for all the ice to return. Well, the equivalent amount of ice, at any rate. 🤦♀️✨
(1) How long will it take for the excess ocean heat content to dissipate into the atmosphere ?
(2) If we stopped emitting greenhouse gases today, self-reinforcing feedbacks from excess ocean heat content will continue for millennia, so is it realistic to even try predicting how long it would take for the Earth Energy Imbalance to reach equilibrium?
(3) If we are relying on enhanced "weathering" to drawdown our total cumulation of CO2 then surely we shall be forced to deploy SRM geoengineering constantly to offset the excess Earth Energy Imbalance & cool the planet ?
Adam has a video on geoengineering. Wouldn't call him an outfront of it Booster of idea.
I'm opposed
》
But yes, there will be a secondary warm peaking assuming we cool after NZ
Eventually atmo over sea surface is so cold the ocean releases heat to maintain balance.
Century or millennial scale
I sold my car and now walk where I want to go. Have a nice day and hug a tree!
I legit love walking
The Rock Clip really got me😂😂😂.
Great video. Thanks!
it was a surprisingly interesting rock!
Possible is entirely a different thing from Probable. Will we unite together to create a balanced society and apply our technology to restore environmental stability? It is possible; but given our history not very probable. It is more probable that a small subset of us will find a way to adapt to the environmental changes and learn to survive in a less than hospitable world. That is something we've done before.
Something doesn't ring true, with the time it will take to eliminate the CO2.
Volcanoes have been putting CO2 into the atmosphere for a very long time, if it takes thousands of years to eliminate the CO2 then surely there would have been an accumulation, which, i don't think, is the case (not suggesting they are worse than humans).
Is there the possibility, that another phenomenon is responsible for regulating the CO2, and we don't know or understand how, and to what degree it is reducing CO2?
as said in the video, we have (in a century and a half) raised CO2 higher than it has been in our atmosphere for millions of years. so this is way out of the balance of the planet's normal CO2 cycling (which - yes - includes volcanoes)
@@ClimateAdam If i remember correctly, we were being told "scientists are surprised" by the speed at which the air cleared, when we put in place lockdowns for coronavirus.
My logic tells me that this means, there is something going on with the chemistry of the atmosphere, that we don't fully understand.
My thoughts are that, maybe, there is some kind of feedback loop, that is slowing down the process of eliminating the CO2, that has been triggered by the colossal amounts we have emitted over the last 150 years.
If by some miracle we did stop emitting the quantities we currently are, and have been for decades, the feedback loop would no longer exist, or would be turned back off, and the elimination process would re-establish it's pre industrial revolution rates.
to removed 80ppm from the carbon cycle naturally requires between 50 to 100 thousand years according to resent historical measurements
How much CO2 do volcanos put in the atmosphere? And how does that compare to the amount of CO2 we release from burning fossil fuels? Consider for example the last Yellowstone eruption, 640,000 years ago. Yellowstone is one of the largest volcanos in the world, but its CO2 barely blipped the historic record. For the past 800,000 years (the extent of really good CO2 records from ice cores), it has stayed between 170-300ppm. In recent times before the Industrial Revolution, it was around 280ppm. It is currently over 420ppm, and rising at close to 3ppm/year. We have increased atmospheric CO2 by 50% globally in less than two centuries. Volcanos simply do not compare.
@@davestagner Which bit about "(not suggesting they are worse than humans)", is it you don't understand?
My point is, if it has stayed between 170-300 ppm for the last 800 000 years, and every time a volcano erupts, it takes 10s of thousands of years, why has it not been steadily increasing before we started dramatically increasing the CO2, bearing in mind we put more than the volcanoes, because volcanoes don't put as much as humans, because humans are bad volcanoes good?
I am not questioning the stupid humans contributing to a problem we wouldn't have if humans weren't as stupid and only volcanoes existed. I am questioning the validity of the argument that it would take so long for mother nature to re stabilise the levels to the pre industrial levels, of 170-300 ppm.
It wouldn't be the first time in the history of science that the models turn out to be talking nonsense, because we forgot to put a factor we didn't think to be playing a role.
Wow, that trick is awesome!
Can you discuss the resource dilemma of fossil fuels and how long it may be that we can continue utilizing carbon emitting technology before it becomes unloveable on what seems to be a very large area of the middle of the planet over the next few hundred years?
Or could you review the work of a scientist already examining such mining and material extraction capacities?
I'm agnostic on this, (cause I'm a layman) but doesn't the notion that when we stop emitting, the carbon sinks balance out the effects the residual carbon in the atmosphere assume the aerosol masking effect is negligible?
Yes, but timescale is debatable. One Spanish paper found CO2 pulses in Cretaceous were absorbed within a millennium
If correct could be ~300ppm by Y3K 🎉
That notion focuses on CO2. But if you take both cutting out aerosols and methane into account (not just aerosols) the picture is similar. Check the video I linked to at that point in the vid.
Amazing video and handstand!
woop woop!
Was this Berlin - Tempelhof former airport?
it was indeed 🛫
It will be too late if we ever actually stop emitting, as that situation is absolutely not happening any time soon, if ever. Humanity is doomed.
Thank you......got me to sub.
welcome!
I would guess a million years for all the ice to return. Well, the equivalent amount of ice, at any rate. 🤦♀️✨
Wow! I thought that you were kidding about the handstand. Definitely the skateboard. Damn Skippy! 👍💫💥
How much effect on the climate does getting closer and farther from the sun have ??
depends on the distance
@@0topon ok I will pull out my tape measure 😁😁😁
@@omarjassar4650 i recommend measuring it in the night, otherwise you could get injured by the heat
@@0topon don't worry , I wear my sunglasses at night , so I won't be Blinded by the light 😁😁😁
@@0topon do I measure from pole to pole or from the equator to equator ?
I recon we could bring down the CO2 levels if we do it actively in about 1000 years.
if we actively work to reduce CO2 levels the picture would 100% be very different
Thank you for this content and Congratulations
thank you!!
What I don’t get is the idea electric vehicles are going to solve the problem. The fuel it takes to mine these precious metals to make the batteries is astounding.mining equipment can guzzle hundreds of gallons of diesel in a 24 hour period but that part seems to be out of sight out of mind with environmentalists.
while the extraction of precious metals is absolutely harmful (environmentally and in terms of social impact), it absolutely does not cause more ghg emissions than ICEs. there's lots on this, but here's an example:
www.carbonbrief.org/factcheck-how-electric-vehicles-help-to-tackle-climate-change/
so EVs are def an improvement, but they're also def not problem free. which is why many argue that solutions like public transportation, cycling infrastructure, more walkable cities, need to be also be implemented.
@@ClimateAdam whoever is looking at that is dead wrong. a ford explorer lets say take the yearly emissions from that vehicle. Next take the yearly emissions from lets say a D9 dozer i guarantee yo that vehicle emitted more greenhouse gases in a years time. So to say mining operations that operate 24/7 dosen't emit as much is just people burying their heads in the sand. Im sorry I see absolutely no way we can live a modern life without fossil fuel.
You can't accurately give me a weather forecast for tomorrow! It's acknowledged that NOTHING more than 3 days into the future it worthless.
Fun fact: climate and weather aren't the same and you certainly can make accurate climate predictions further out. Don't believe me? Then that means you genuinely don't know whether next January is going to be hotter than next July in Canada
Maybe that idea of putting liquid CO2 at the bottom of the oceans might be and idea worth trying out.
Is this Berlin’s Tempelhofer Feld?
I'm going to check back in on this channel in exactly 35,000 years from today. If any of your predictions are incorrect I will be reporting this as misinformation.
What if by year 2080 DAC is removing 50 billion metric tons of co2 annually? Would that change anything in terms of earths temperature?
for sure - actively removing CO2 from the atmosphere would help undo some of the warming (and associated issues), if we were removing more than we were causing. some things (notably tipping elements) would not reverse, though.
@@ClimateAdam Okay, thanks for replying!
Geologic time is a foreign concept to the people that are typically saying “ I’ve come to this beach for 30 years and nothing has changed“ we are beyond help at this point. Even if they did agree that we are causing damage that far in the future. The next sentence out of their mouth would probably be. Oh I don’t care. I’m not gonna be here anyway.
Skateboard skills!
LN2 energy storage from renewables might be the best carbon capture technology as the entire process will create dry ice that can captured and stored elsewhere. All other forms of carbon capture appears to be vaporware.
18" .5m GSL by 2100 is consensus?
Seems usaually hear meter+
Our earth is in a CO2 drought. That's why I do everything I can to increase my CO2 output, as everyone should. Do your part to make our planet greener and more comfortable. Consider driving somewhere just for the heck of it. It's really that easy.
Nice! We're fucked!
Michael Jackson's
EARTH SONG 🌎
video is a Profound message.
Revealing
Don't worry. Eventually those little micro bugs will eventually get us all. Little unseen bugs are much more dangerous than anything else we could imagine. let's halve our population over the next 100 years.
What is the estimated cost of the multiplying climate catastrophes to capitalism and how can that be applied to the dialectical materialism?
11:00
Why did yo show a video of a demolition of a nuclear power plant while saying "how quickly we will stop emitting"? It looks like you associated the CO2 emissions to nuclear energy, but that's not right: nuclear energy is one of the cleanest energy sources, it emits even less amounts of CO2 than solar energy and it is on par with wind energy.
Those are the cooling towers of a fossil fuel plant. Cooling towers are used in general for all thermal power plants, and are not specific to nuclear (but I think the simpsons maybe gave everyone that idea)
@@ClimateAdam Oh ok, my mistake. I thought that because I've already seen this kind of association, and I've even seen a representation of cooling towers with black smoke coming out of them to represent a nuclear plant, once. Anyway thank you for answering!
Depressing 😢
Tempelhof?
Jawohl!
Why would the current interglacial last 50,000 more years? Recent interglacials have been only about 25,000 or even shorter.
We’ve interrupted your regular glacial cycle.
I keep hearing that the planet will survive but we may not. Now that you have shown what could happen for 50,000 years with CO2 could you also provide some information on what sort of life could survive. Not for 50,000 years of turmoil of course, by then everything will be back to, I'm guessing our year 1800 or so. Just jump ahead perhaps only 40,000 years and lets see what's left. Certainly not us nor any other relatively large species in my opinion.
I've just persuaded my partner that climate scientists are cool.
I hope I was used as an example not an exception!
So we're cooked.
Ice age in 50-120k years? Don’t think so, winter is coming sooner….. much sooner. Even so a lot of our mingling will linger on till the next interglacial some 120k years from now!
Oh my god
2:07 neep holes
In 10,000 years, the human population will be in the trillions, and most will live off the Earth, on other planets, moons, asteroids, space stations, and some will be on 10,000-year journeys to other star systems.
Two thirds of USA is in coastal cities. But, please, keep denying. I guess I'll move to AZ (where it is already *hot,* so what's the 4-5 degrees) and watch y'all try and figure it out LOL.
Serious question from a mainly solar charged E bike rider who as a family have gone to one used E.V soon to be camper van and have not taken flights for nearly 5 years, and have committed to various solar challenges ( garden pond, our phones lap tops and bikes and the entire stables) as well as considering most purchases from a resources perspective along with sustainability and packaging etc.
Does new CO2 from alcohol production, yeast for bread making , carbonated drinks and the likes enter into the equation at all?
I have often wondered this, Thanks in advance and thank you for your videos.
Also it baffles me how many people have no idea bottle banks exists and that glass should be re used or recycled. Ed
Hi Dr. Levy!
I'm curious about the psychology of climate change. If I said we'll probably see warming accelerate exponentially and we're certain to hit 10+ degrees of warming by the end of the century and Earth will become Venus 2.0, this comment would probably get a hundred upvotes. But if said there's a great chance we'll be able to limit warming to 2 degrees, I'd get laughed off the channel.
Why do we tend to gravitate toward the worst possible climate predictions? Do people just like the idea of humanity going extinct in the next ten years even though models don't support that conclusion?
Venus isn't hot at the surface because of CO2. It's hot at the surface because of other factors. Mainly because of density. Venus' atmosphere at the surface is 54 times denser than Earth's. So it has 54 times the mass per unit volume. In other words, 54 times the number of molecules with translational and rotational energy...HEAT!
Also, by about 6km above the surface, CO2 on Venus becomes a supercritical fluid. It has about 25% less heat capacity than CO2 on Earth, so it takes less energy to change its temperature. Fact is, the first 6km of atmosphere on Venus is more than likely just an extension of the planets geothermal gradient.
If you want to know what CO2 is actually doing on Venus, find the temperature of the atmosphere where air pressure is 1bar and get back with me. You can find it under Venus Temperature and Pressure Profiles.
As Jimmy pointed out, you don't understand climate. A 2.5 deg C warming of the globe will cause drastic change to society and will harm massive numbers of people. The rise in sea level, the increase in wet-bulb temperature events in cities that aren't prepared, the drastic changes in precipitation and so on is already significant, and will only get worse. There is no getting better for any of it.
The best case can only happen if we stop emitting CO2, absolutely, today. That's not going to happen, so we really don't know how bad it's going to be, but it's going to be much worse in the near future.
That's not doomsaying, that's an accurate, but vague description.
I doubt you actually understand much about psychology, either.
@@jaykanta4326 Case in point. Whether or not you're accurate about the climate science, you're being pretty mean-spirited to me. Why?
@@General12th because you sound like a denialist
@@jaykanta4326 Absolutely not. Climate change is real and dangerous. Some of my personal projects include designing optimal cities as well as power grids that run exclusively on renewables and battery storage. (It's a fun hobby! Even though I'm not a professional.)
However. I don't agree with the notion that warming is _guaranteed_ to accelerate wildly even if we cut emissions tomorrow, and thus climate change is _guaranteed_ to kill us all. If the slightest twinge of optimism in a sea of fatalistic doomerism makes me a denialist, then I'm not sure what to say.