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When I was just about to log off for the holiday break, I saw these headlines popping up, saying that it doesn’t take much to turn Earth into Venus with a runaway greenhouse effect which would, quote, literally boil earth alive. I thought it’d be best to ignore this. But then I saw that some people on social media got first worried about it, and then confused because no one was addressing this. So I decided to, well, you know, give you all the boring context because that’s what I do. And here we go.
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When I was just about to log off for the holiday break, I saw these headlines popping up, saying that it doesn’t take much to turn Earth into Venus with a runaway greenhouse effect which would, quote, literally boil earth alive. I thought it’d be best to ignore this.
But then I saw that some people on social media got first worried about it, and then confused because no one was addressing this. So I decided to, well, you know, give you all the boring context because that’s what I do. And here we go.
A runaway greenhouse effect happens when a planet loses its ability to cool. Then, the only way for the surface temperature is up. This might happen for example when the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere increases beyond a critical threshold.
That’s because water vapor is an incredibly potent greenhouse gas, and also, the warmer a planet, the more of its water will be in the form of vapor. So, higher temperatures lead to more water vapor which lead to higher temperatures, and the effect can, well run away, hence the name.
Scientists believe that a runaway greenhouse effect is what happened to our neighbour planet Venus. Venus is in size and mass not too different from Earth. When it was young it was probably quite similar our planet, with liquid water on the surface. But Venus is somewhat closer to the sun than we are.
And since it received more sunlight, the amount of water vapor in its atmosphere was higher. At the same time, the sunlight was powerful enough to split the water vapor into oxygen and hydrogen. And, here’s the problem, the hydrogen escaped into space.
This is bad because with the hydrogen gone for good, the water cycle couldn’t stabilize. And water is good to absorb carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. So, as the hydrogen fraction decreased, the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere steadily built up, covering Venus in a thick blanket that retained heat very well.
Today the atmosphere of Venus is mostly carbon dioxide, the water is all gone, the atmospheric pressure is about 90 times that of earth, and the surface temperature is roughly 370 degrees Celsius. If you’ve sometimes dreamed of plucking chickens out of the air fully roasted, then
Moving to Venus might be the right thing for you, though you’d have to take your chickens with a side of sulphur. The rest of us I guess would find Venus a rather unpleasant place to live. Now comes this press release from researchers at the University of Geneva which says, quote:
“With their new climate models, the scientists have calculated that a very small increase of the solar irradiation […] would be enough to trigger this irreversible runaway process on Earth and make our planet as inhospitable as Venus.” This sounds hugely alarming.
Indeed, an article that was covering this press release warned that we could cause such a runaway greenhouse effect by increasing carbon dioxide levels. “It’s a grim warning of just how stark a future of human-driven climate change can look.” So watch out, here comes the context. First, let’s have a look at solar irradiation.
That’s the radiation from the sun that reaches the surface of earth. It’s basically a measure for the energy we get from the sun. It fluctuates naturally and goes somewhat up and down during the solar cycle. These fluctuations do have an influence on the temperature on earth of typically a few
Tens of a degree. That’s noticeable and accounted for in the IPCC projections, but it’s smaller than the effect by human-caused increase of carbon dioxide levels. Though the brightness of our sun very slowly increases as it gets older and that will eventually cause a runaway greenhouse effect on earth, too.
According to estimates we’ve got one or two billion years. So, Elon’s got some time left to get us off this planet. For all I know, if you wanted to substantially increase solar irradiance any sooner than that to levels so high that it’d trigger a runaway greenhouse effect, you’d have
To move earth closer to the sun. So if these scientists say that “small” changes in solar irradiation can cause a runaway greenhouse effect on earth, I’d really like to know what “small” means. Numbers people, show me numbers!
I looked for the numbers in the paper and would you know it, the paper doesn’t so much as contain the word solar irradiation. How did the word get into the press release? I wrote an email to one of the authors and got no response.
What they did in the paper is that they increased a model parameter called the insulation of a planet. Increasing this insulation prevents the simulated planet from cooling, and then they keep track of what happens. The reason they did this is that they want to better understand under which circumstances
Life might be possible on exoplanets. The paper doesn’t say anything about a runaway greenhouse effect on Earth. The press release just quotes one of the authors as saying that they’d like to study this in the future. What do we know about the risk of a runaway greenhouse effect on earth?
Well we do know that the past of our planet has had phases that were both hotter and had much higher atmospheric carbon dioxide levels than we have today. Not only this, but it was sometimes also higher than what we are likely to reach even if we keep on happily burning fossil fuels.
This shouldn’t be all that surprising because the carbon in those fossil fuels mostly came from the atmosphere in the first place. And since no runaway greenhouse effect happened back then, it seems unlikely we’ll trigger one now. It also hasn’t happened in any climate models, most of which are much more sophisticated
Than the ones the guys in that new paper used. The problem with climate change is really not the temperature or the carbon dioxide level per se, it’s the rapid change. We and the rest of the biosphere must adapt to the changing climate within a matter of decades.
That puts a lot of stress on our economies and brings the risk of a strong economic downturn. It’s bad enough as it is without having to make people afraid of a runaway greenhouse effect. Of course, I can’t say that the risk is indeed zero, because god knows what other
Stupid ideas humans will come up with to meddle with the climate, but really I think a runaway greenhouse effect is not something we need to worry about. No matter how much they dig in Saudi Arabia, it’s not going to move the earth closer to the sun, I promise.
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50 Comments
Hi all, this is a reupload of a video you might have seen popping up earlier today. In the earlier version I had misread a word ("tens" as "tenth") and the following sentence then made no sense. Rather than apologizing about this until the end of time because no one reads the text in the info, I cut out the sentence because it doesn't really matter for what follows. Thanks for your patience and many apologies.
(It is funny in a way in that it's exactly the kind of mistake you expect a German to make, as with us not being able to properly pronounce the English "th" and all 😅)
0:25 im totaly fine with boring context, world is mad and panic mongering enough imho =)
We humans needs to stop using water, its a way worse climate changing agent then CO2. Stop feeding babies, the water use is unacceptable
No, we don't want to scare anyone – we're taking environmental destruction so seriously anyway…..🤔🤔🤔
It doesn't matter tho, you don't need a runaway greenhouse effect for human extinction, as some of the most developed lifeforms we are the most vulnerable to extinction when it comes to ELEs and even then, if we have a collapse of global agriculture/civilisational collapse most people are going to die and everyone is generally going to have a very bad time, even the period approaching collapse will be very unpleasant with increasing wars over limited resources, authoritarian crackdowns by the ruling class etc.
This is what happens when you commercialize the news. Hardly a new problem unfortunately.
As of 2100Z 13 Jan 2024, north-middle US and touching south-middle Canada are clocking in at -55° F/-48° C. GLOBAL WARMING IS A TRICKSTER!
0:55 I just realized that if water vapor is a greenhouse gas, then it's probably a bad idea to have cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells
According to Hansen’s latest paper we already have 7C – 10C increase in the pipeline when all the feedbacks have played out. This is based on CO2 and temperature proxies showing the correlation over the last million years. In practice it is likely to be far worse because there at least 7x as much coal in the ground that what we have burned, and no signs we are going to curb our use. Tough on the grandchildren.
Yup kids are told this in school high school and university they need to know science
Good show keep more shows on climate
Commenters do note, no runaway greenhouse effect doesn't mean "no big deal" it just means that the worst case scenario will not look like venus. Worst case scenario is still an extinction level event with all the problems that scientists have been warning about for decades.
It's OK, the oceans will boil in 400 years anyway. I just watched your video. (:-)
DOCTOR MANN!!! YOUR HOCKEY STICKS!!!
That's an intelligent statement that the carbon in the fossil fuels came from the atmosphere in the first place. There is no mass being created.
In addition to this in america with the green initiutive the people want giant electric vehicles and the energy star programs reward larger houses because they do a per square foot efficiency calculation. The surface to volume ratio of the home improves the energy rating. Instead of getting a heat pump with a larger heat exchanger, you can get paid to make your whole house bigger. In europe they don't mind driving a smaller car or living in a house that is still proportional to the human body. America is going to kill people for renewable materials.
Fear, whatever it's flavour, moves money from public pockets into the pockets of the elites proffering to manage the solutions.
"Insolation" is a term used in atmospheric physics to refer to the incoming solar radiation, in this context it doesn't have anything to do with the ability to contain heat
The responsible way to look at risk is to determine the downside. If it’s costly in lives (those living now and future generations) who are we to risk theirs? Keep in mind we don’t have to become Venus to cause a global extinction event that includes us. Maybe Sabine can do a piece on the methane risk from loss of albedo? That’s what we should avoid.
WE are the CARBON they want to REDUCE. 💯
My question is, does her calculation include a sudden enormous amount of methane released from permafrost and ocean methane hydrates? The heating from that would further release water vapor. That's pretty drastic.
Also, it won't take much of a heat rise to make much of the earth would be uninhabitable without any extreme runaway.
Its unlikely to run away, but dew points above 30°C make life unpleasant for humans, and wet bulb above 35°C will make it impossible.
In a time where political correctness is practiced as the main religion, we cant get context enough by a long shot. Keep them coming.
Ok All sounds well and good, but let me tell you the real reason for this I AM the God Mars and my wife venus is very hard to Please I try to keep her happy but sometimes she causes me to get hot under the collar. That the probelem Im not as hot as I was when I was younger you know.
The critical temperature is 47°C. Globaly middled. At first there will be a new cloud cover high in the stratosphere. This will trigger a runaway greenhause effect. Every ten yards of vaporized ocean surface will double the atmospheric pressure.
Many millions of years ago, when CO2 levels were very much higher, the Earth was only 7°C short of Venus2.0. It can possibly happen, but with globaly middled 13°C, we are far from the trigger.
🚀🏴☠️🎸
Why are they trying to starve the trees?
Sabine, I have a lot of respect for you, you are a smart person with very high intelligence and I am a subscriber. I also am taking the time to comment even before I watch your video, I understand what the title means and how you might address it in this video.
The real problem which should scare people is that deforestation, development and population growth is real, regardless of pollution even. There will if not already has been a tipping point where the agriculture and consumption can't balance. Even now it's all in plastic, smaller packages, more of them more waste. Like many systems they starve themselves of the fuel and die out it happens with machines it happens with finances they get bigger need more then a component fails or is depleted bringing the whole thing down.
Why has Chemical pollution not been in the conversation? Medical pollution? Dead zones at mouths of industrial rivers. Things we can change. Will the microbiological world become resistant to everything we create? Super bugs that will wipe out most life on Earth. Thanks for your insight and sensical presentations. Humour is the best medicine 🙂
Sabine, you are a joy.
Regardless…….it was supposed to be the year 2100 and the temperature was going to increase 1.5 degrees (C), and then it was 2050 for the 1.5 degree increase, and this year it is predicted that the global temp will increase 1.5 degrees by the end of 2030….7 bloody years….good news No Greenhouse effect…..too late we've killed ourselves fighting on a searingly HOT planet for dwindling Resources……..Sabine, what is your Point ?
Regardless of runaway climate change, I'm thinking millions of climate refugees will cause war and famine…
Truthfully, everything that these cult like teenage activists have said and done about climate change over the past few years has made it so I refuse to engage and take it seriously. Not only are they all brainwashed and radicalized to the point where they only know how to spout the same regurgitated talking points, but anytime anybody starts picking apart their facts or gives opposing opinions or stats, they have no idea how to actually respond except with more shouting and name calling, and basically emotional breakdowns.
And get rid of Greta too also. She causes people like me to not only feel apathetic towards the climate, but I actually feel like raising my carbon footprint just to spite her
Thank god for global warming. It's about time we leave the ice age and stop using up so much energy for heating up our habitat.
I actually believe that the climate change denial problem was caused by the media exaggerating its consequences. That made people question the hole thing and reject the well established fact that climate change is real.
Climatologist James Hansen indeed did cover the possibility of a runaway greenhouse effect long ago.
But this question is actually totally irrelevant because way before the earth could become inhospitable for life it would have become inhospitable for humanity.
So there would nobody be left who could worry.
The thing is just, that we as humans now have control over the fate of the planet. Could we burn everything we got and still survive as a species? Yep. But then vast landscapes of Earth would be unlivable in without technology, just as back then. The Wet-bulb temperature of the human body is where the combination of temperature and humidity is at a level such that the body can't cool itself – it just can't get the temperature away anymore. You overheat and die. And we will see much of that around the world.
So while the planet does not have a problem of a "runaway greenhouse effect", we have something similar. Not being able to cool, not being able to simply live in those places.
And not just us. Animals, plants as well. Less farmland. Simply not enough to support the population that we have. It is not surprising, it's simple physics. We are modifying the conditions to a state, where it cannot support that many of us. And we will lose more and more of the ecosphere as well, which comes with its own problems.
The planet won't have that problem. Even if the imbalance of the ecosystem somehow kills us, it will restore that balance again with species better adapted to the current circumstances. But as long as we do not have biomodification to literally change our bodies, that's a problem. So we'd have to run as many DNA-modification tests as we can now, ignoring the questions of what is ethical. And it is unlikely that you can change an existing human body – it rather would be our children.
Life is cause and effect, action and consequence. It's right there! We decide to do this, we know much about what it does, and we are doing it and should expect what it causes.
Don't look up.
You didn't address the methane frozen in ice issue. Ice gonna melt and release epic methane. Look it up.
I mostly agree, but I’ll feel a little better if the Scientific community could address things like the possibility of Global vertical land displacement caused shifting weight of the ice and water on the earth Crust, also the release of giant reservoir of methane from deep in the oceans if the temperature increases for some reason. But all in all property investors will probably have a field day as the ocean begins to rise, and that old country song about ocean front property in Arizona will take on new meaning.
https://youtu.be/ioPa1URjZ_Y?si=HK3-oYcGNo4kR7th
Big oil has got to you!
Well, here in Costa Rica we are "enjoying" temperatures between 1 and 2 C above the average for this time of year. We are literally cooking during what is supposed the coolest month, and on drought alert. It's not normal. It's crazy. People get sick and die. It only takes a few degrees above normal.
Thank you for kicking misinformation in its conceptual shins🙏🤓😎🤣
The atmosphere is being polluted more and more every year by fossil fuels, trash burning and crops burning. There's 8 billion people on this planet. Look at it from space at night. Nothings the same as it used to be. The burning and air pollution and a water pollution and the overpopulation has to stop. We're not little animals or herds of cows they can just do what we want to suit ourselves for profits. You have to wake up
Off topic: nice view of Madrid when begining the explanation on solar radiation 😊
do you understand what methane ice is and where it is and how it melts when the ocean warms slightly? the ocean is warming rapidly.
But even if we never get a climate like Venus even a temperature rise by let us say 10 or 20 degrees Celsius may be disastrous for humanity…
Still waiting for experiment that demonstrates doubling CO2 raises air temp 2.7F or more as required by mann made global warming theory.
Solid compact review on the real information from the paper, and what it actually means. 🙂
It might be right, but there are factors that is not the same as last time the temp was high and co2 was high. For this millions of years since that time not only oil has been made. The feed back mechanics behind gases lik methane ( 28 co2e ) , Nitrous Oxide( 273 co2e) and Fluorinated gases( 14600 co2e) . These gases has been created and hidden for us by the frozen grounds. One can not just say that hese gases means nothing. SH threats them as they do not excist, It is a long way to Venus conditions, but just a few percents in that Venus direction will make us boil. And we have just seen the start of this process. When Sibir, Canada and Alaska start melting this feed back will start. And this again will also make it more difficult for other species to survive. Plankton in the ocean is among them. They feed fish and animals and also produce most of the new oxygen that is much needed on earth. It is complicated, but we must not underestimate what is ahead of us if we do nothing.
sensationalist articles are (at least in discussions I have with people) a major reason why people do not believe in a climate change problem.
free electricity generator…https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNN5MgaMMG4