Worldbuilding

Questions tagged [climate-change]

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For questions about planetary climate change.

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We are in 2200 and global warming hits us very bad. Can we create a winter? [closed]

Let's assume a society similar to ours, a few hundreds of years in the future. We managed to trigger a snowball effect on global warming with our fossil fuel use. Earth is very hot. The technology is ...
4
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3answers
309 views

When earth is filled to the brim with plant-life, can it cause a hyperoxic environment?

Say humans found a way to exponentially increase the capability of plants to grow. Is it possible for it to cause an environment that can cause oxygen toxicity in humans?
9
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3answers
103 views

What average global temperature would optimize Earth for human habitability?

The year is 2100. While climate change has wrought serious damage to the biosphere, humanity has at last managed to become carbon neutral, and has even developed technology that can be used to reduce ...
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0answers
51 views

What could cause massive global sea level rise? [duplicate]

I'm thinking of creating a world in which sea levels have risen by around 200 metres, leading the Earth's surface to look something like this, minus the ice: Obviously, a 200 metre rise is enormous, ...
2
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1answer
72 views

Is it possible to have a greenhouse effect this strong and still have an atmosphere breathable by humans?

An Earth mass terran planet is orbiting a sun-like star at 2AU. I understand the limit for CO2 greenhouse effects is 1.67AU for whatever reason (giving a conventional habitable zone limit), but ...
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3answers
154 views

Could an enormous structure be used to attract rain by acting as an artificial mountain?

If it were possible to build a giant geodesic dome tens of miles in diameter, what effect would it have on nearby weather? If built in an arid climate like the Sahara or Australia, would it be ...
5
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4answers
188 views

In an Earth with massively spiked CO2 content, how might survivors set about reducing that content?

Some cataclysmic event has transpired on planet Earth in the not-too-distant-future, and the outside air is now thick with CO2, causing all of the problems that come with it. Human beings can no ...
4
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5answers
224 views

Post- Nuclear Holocaust. Radioactive wastelands vs eco-system and chances of human survivability?

I'm attempting to flesh out the history to a sci-fi novel I'm currently writing, which is set in the future. Several hundred years prior to the beginning of the story, lack of resources lead to ...
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8answers
9k views

What would Earth look like at the beginning of 22nd century if temperatures rose by 30 degrees Celsius?

The beginning of 22nd century. Temperatures on the globe rose by 30 degrees Celsius over decades, because humanity was unwilling to stop greenhouse gas emissions. How would the surface of Earth look ...
2
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4answers
150 views

Need a North American location with a large city and whitewater river for post-apocalyptic fiction

My story has several key locations that I would like to ground in a real place in North America. It takes place 50-60 years in the future after 97% of humanity has been wiped out. I'm having a hell of ...
5
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1answer
204 views

What would happen if ocean currents suddenly stopped (or changed)?

I'm thinking about a device (in a story I'm writing) that could control ocean currents, and I'm wondering how it could be weaponized. For example, if an ocean current was suddenly stopped, what might ...
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2answers
97 views

Would sea levels drop in a Younger Dryas-type event?

I was imagining a sort of post-apocalyptic/collapse setting, where a few centuries of climate catastrophes brought on by climate change cause essentially your general end of the world as we know it ...
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2answers
106 views

What will my grandson see? [closed]

It’s the year 2109, despite the efforts of the heroic climate change campaigners of my childhood the tide of human progress was too much to halt. Humanity didn’t change its ways and everything ...
1
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1answer
71 views

Could a Puma survive an Impact Winter?

I'm doing some researches for my book. I've read that the impact winter which lead to dinosaurs extinction was 18 months long. Long enough to kill plant life, big herbivorous and big carnivorous. I ...
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2answers
92 views

What would happens if global warming cause enough atmosphere loss?

What would happens if due to increased volume and reduced density, the global warming cause consistent loss into space of certain gases of atmosphere? What would we observe?
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4answers
1k views

What adaptations would be advantageous given a regular, but extreme variation in climate?

In a fantasy world I am constructing, a planet goes through regular, but extreme temperature cycling. Roughly every 500 years, the planet begins to heat or cool, dependent on its current temperature. ...
5
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2answers
190 views

Would building a large underwater dome be possible with European Renaissance technology?

So my novel setting is a pseudo-European continent that is at a Renaissance level of technology, and over the past century has experienced rampant sea level rise. I’d imagine that this would present a ...
3
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3answers
347 views

The Earth-like world's been shrouded by darkness. For how long would the civilization be able survive?

In this setting, the Continent has been hit by several catastrophes, caused by the inner workings of planet's tectonics, and the eruption of a volcano far on the other side of the world. Gravest of ...
27
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9answers
5k views

Keeping an “hot eyeball planet” wet

Consider such a tidally locked planet: Many issues with tidally locked worlds have been discussed, but I'm not clear on how the water cycle for an otherwise Earth-like tidally locked world, would be ...
4
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10answers
8k views

Would using carbon dioxide as fuel work to reduce the greenhouse effect?

I'm trying to find a plausible way to reduce global warming in a world past the tipping point. I recently read this article : https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/11/171127173225.htm. It ...
6
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3answers
413 views

Are there semi plausible scenarios where Nuclear Winter could last a thousand years or trigger an ice age?

Trying to develop a fictional scenario with a 'believable' theory as to how a Nuclear War and resulting Nuclear Winter could turn into a millennial scale ice age. By 'believable', I mean that it ...
7
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3answers
231 views

Preserving the mammoth steppe

During much of the Late Pleistocene stage, the world's most widespread biome was the so-called "mammoth steppe" - a cold, dry grassland which spanned eastward all the way from Spain to Canada. It was ...
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4answers
643 views

Is a post-climate apocalypse city in which many or most insects have disappeared realistic?

Supposing climate change continues at its current "worst case" projected rates, would we see a noticeable reduction in insects down the line? I am wondering if it makes sense to have a character who ...
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13answers
6k views

Is this state of Earth possible, after humans left for a million years?

It is the year 4056 (or probably later). The rocket with the last residents of Earth just took off, because global warming and pollution couldn't be stopped nor reverted and Earth became uninhabitable....
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1answer
172 views

Do any of the things happening on this world actually have a chance of happening? And if they do, how long would humankind survive? [closed]

In this world, global warming has reached a tipping point. The equator has reached temperatures well over 212 degrees Fahrenheit (100 Celsius, 373 Kelvin), resulting in the "Boiling Sea". Global ...
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2answers
148 views

What are the logistics of wiping out the current world to the point a “new” generation of humans would not be able to find it? [closed]

Backstory I have a race of biologically advanced aliens that develop by fighting, adapting, and growing immune to the current highest standards of technology a species has to offer. By doing this they'...
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2answers
107 views

Underwater City- Applications of Nanotech

With the rise of global warming and our leaders not seeming to do enough about it, expanding our ranges past the earth's ground seems like something we must do eventually. Everyone always points to ...
2
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0answers
104 views

Post Apocalyptic world [closed]

Im a Film student and I'm currently working on a idea for a film involving a world after global warming and the deconstruction of civilisation. Whilst my ideas won't all be realistic to the Nature of ...
5
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2answers
173 views

Would a More Extreme Icing of Antarctica Create an Extinction Event?

55 million years ago, the world was literally a jungle. It was so warm that plants like the bald cypress and the dawn redwood have been found at Ellesmere Island, right inside the Arctic Circle. ...
3
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3answers
330 views

What kind of extinction event could solve Global Warming?

The world I'm creating will be referred to as E. Current E population is growing exponentially, and the population will become completely unsustainable soon. Global Warming is also increasing ...
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3answers
129 views

Government power in an Ice Age [closed]

The setting of my story takes place during a future Ice Age, where the equator and parts of the southern hemisphere are a safe haven for humans. Which countries or regions would most likely be the '...
7
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5answers
2k views

Could Comets or Meteors be used to Combat Global Warming?

The running theory is that if the Earth is hit by a sufficiently large meteor, that the impact would create an ice age from all the dust it would put into the atmosphere. While this has been ...
6
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2answers
211 views

Can enough CO2 be captured, in order to reduce global warming, to reduce oxygen levels to suffocating levels?

In a comment to a recent question, it was pointed out that Biosphere II failed in part because too much CO2 was absorbed by the concrete, leaving insufficient oxygen in available CO2 to be released by ...
5
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2answers
312 views

Reducing atmospheric pressure on Snowball Earth

A Snowball Earth is a global condition (which may have occurred many times) in which the temperature everywhere on the surface was, for extended periods (up to tens of millions of years), below the ...
43
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27answers
14k views

How could a time traveler have prevented climate change [closed]

Let's say a Moon colonist in the future has discovered an alien time machine. A small remnant of humanity still exists on colony worlds in the solar system, but due to runaway climate change, they are ...
4
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3answers
215 views

How large can a magical cold region be before it dramatically alters global climate?

In the setting I'm working on, I want to have a vast 'sea' of diamond dust that is sustained by some kind of chilling magic effect that's spread across the surface of the land. Since magic is ...
7
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3answers
234 views

Can black algae promote a global warming on a cold planet?

My world is at the outer edge of the habitable zone. There is enough heat and geological activity to start life, but a snowball earth is looming and threatens to freeze it all. There is some spring ...
7
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3answers
241 views

Plausible futuristic infrastructure for an underwater micronation built 300-500 feet below the surface

My story takes place hundreds of years in the future after global warming has made life at the surface uninhabitable for most life forms. What’s left of mankind survived because it became popular to ...
5
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4answers
265 views

How might a naturally-occuring geographical barrier between two areas *suddenly* become permeable so that a few people can cross it?

The world is Earth, probably west coast of the USA, in the throes of severe climate disaster; major storms, earthquakes, droughts, fires and floods are the norm. I am looking for a way to suddenly ...
6
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4answers
868 views

Can satellites decrease global warming?

An island nation has a lot of coastal territory and has become gravely concerned about the threat of global warming. They've decided to fix this by launching reflective satellites into orbit -- ...
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4answers
514 views

Would moving Earth around solve the rise in global temperature problem? [duplicate]

Without worrying about the other issues of global warming like rise in CO$_2$ level, hole in ozone..etc, lets assume that we're facing with rise of global temperature. And assume there's an efficient ...
3
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3answers
231 views

Could a comet cool down global tempatures? [duplicate]

In warlords I wanted Terrans to have a fad of big (synthetic) fur jackets, but I didn't want too have everyone running around in winter clothing for no good reason so the solution my mind instantly ...
5
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2answers
188 views

Would the melting of ice islands affect the weather across the seas?

I've studied a little about glacial melting and temperature changes in sea currents and worldwide. I couldn't find any definitive answer and since I'm no expert on this matter I'm a bit confused. The ...
3
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2answers
76 views

Opaque Solar Shield in Geosynchronous Orbit: Plausibility + Challenges of Maintaining Orbit

Suppose humans of the late 21st century or beyond began constructing a solar shield as a solution to climate change. Suppose for some reason (open to suggestions) they choose to build the shield in ...
6
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3answers
293 views

What would happen to the climate if Earth's sea-levels rose 2000m?

This is the first of possibly several posts about the following scenario, in which Earth's sea-level rises 2 km overnight, generating a world map looking like this: Question: What would be the ...
5
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1answer
142 views

What might the political climate in the United States look like in twenty or thirty years? [closed]

I wrote a speculative science fiction novel in 2014, and last week I met a copy editor who suggested that I do some digging to find out how the society in which my character would be integrated would ...
3
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2answers
256 views

What might India look like in 2070 in terms of climate change? [closed]

In terms of climate change, what are some reasonable / speculative scenarios for the Indian sub-continent in the general timespan of 2070 - 2100? Hotter patches? Flooded areas? I am basically looking ...
0
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2answers
352 views

What would happen to Earth's climate and sky if the ozone layer was completely distroyed? [closed]

It would be very interesting to have sci-fi stuff showing our planet lacking the ozone layer due to deterioration of biodiversity and pollution. I read that Earth could not have life if there wasn't ...
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1answer
101 views

Could the city of Boston, Mass avoid rising sea levels by building levees? [closed]

I have seen similar proposals to deal with potential sea level rises in New York City, which would work by constructing levees around the east river and the barrier islands surrounding Staten and Long ...
1
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2answers
105 views

What are some of the global impacts of technologically converting desert biomes into grasslands? [closed]

As per the Koppen climate model, for the purposes of this question deserts are dry, non-polar climates. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_climate At a hypothetical time in near future, the human ...

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