Questions tagged [climate-change]
For questions about planetary climate change.
98
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1answer
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Could the vaporization of all the oceans push away most of the air in the atmostphere?
You may remember my question here, part of which assumed that all humans would die in one way very quickly, with minimal destruction to the planet.
This question will ask about the way humans would ...
2
votes
2answers
181 views
How long would it take for earth to dry up?
At current global warming rates, the sea levels are rising because the ice caps are melting. But once the ice caps are all melted, the sea would stay the same.
In my world, humanity's money revolves ...
11
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3answers
409 views
How much of the sun's light would have to be blocked for the Earth to become uninhabitable?
For context: I'm writing a story where the main antagonist is an empire that builds Dyson swarms around every star they can get their hands on. The protagonist lives on a planet around one such star, ...
2
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2answers
52 views
How could strange energies cause massive droughts within a localized region?
The scenario:
Background
Let me begin by explaining the surreal parts of this scenario: essentially there is an archipelago of islands just south of Australia that have existed under the world's noses....
5
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3answers
109 views
Best location for mass desertification?
I would like to know the best potential mass desertified location for my story set in the near future. (50-60 years.) This includes land or water, eg a dried up lake or area of farmland, or both.
By ...
6
votes
3answers
460 views
Would a permanent rain be possible?
Would there any scientifical explanation to a permanent rain (at least 2 years) everywhere on Earth ? Climate-change ?
My best explanation at this point is accelerated ice cap melting. There must be ...
6
votes
3answers
509 views
Could you actually make a green space program?
Is it plausible to build and maintain a space program without adding to climate change?
While obviously there are larger problems in the near term with respect to climate change, I'm thinking about a ...
0
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2answers
83 views
What impact would a magical curse that saps the life from plants have on bodies of water?
I have a region in my homebrew D&D setting that used to be grassland/fertile farmland, and the breadbasket of the elven empire, until some wizards did a collective magical ritual that permanently ...
1
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0answers
35 views
Enhanced Rock Weathering in the Sahel Region of Africa [closed]
A recent Guardian article "Spreading rock dust on fields could remove vast amounts of CO2 from air" has gotten some attention in the nongovernmental and UN organizations working in the Sahel ...
2
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3answers
140 views
In a world where sea levels fell dramatically, what effect would that have on life at the local level? (more in the body)
Assuming the levels fell at a noticeable rate year-on-year, how long would it take the tides to be a significant (200m or so) distance from where they used to be? How long until the new land would be ...
2
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1answer
68 views
Could a new impact basin be responsible for desiccating an entire planet?
Situation: A planet similar in size to the Earth has a Eurasia+ sized continent at its South Pole. It is hit by a huge asteroid near its South Pole. This would produce a very large crater/basin. ...
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1answer
62 views
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
votes
3answers
326 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
votes
3answers
118 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 ...
1
vote
0answers
52 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
votes
1answer
104 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 ...
2
votes
3answers
174 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
194 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
256 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 ...
15
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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 ...
3
votes
4answers
191 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
540 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 ...
3
votes
2answers
109 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
110 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
vote
1answer
73 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?
6
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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
votes
2answers
212 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
votes
3answers
366 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 ...
29
votes
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
votes
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
votes
3answers
440 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
289 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 ...
8
votes
4answers
653 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 ...
13
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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
175 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 ...
0
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2answers
152 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
108 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
121 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
votes
2answers
177 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
votes
3answers
340 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 ...
1
vote
3answers
143 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
votes
2answers
228 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
327 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 ...
asked Feb 13 '19 at 8:44
Rottweiler on market-day.
13.4k4 gold badges38 silver badges79 bronze badges
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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
218 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
votes
3answers
238 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
votes
3answers
268 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
278 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 ...
