"The Wandering Earth 2" made the Spring Festival cinema completely popular, and together with the hit TV series "Three-Body Problem", ignited everyone's yearning for the vast universe, congratulations to the Chinese film industry, thank you Da Liu! To wander with the earth, we must not only consider whether the earth's crust can withstand it, but also consider the future of the earth's climate.
The Wandering Earth II is a hit, congratulations to Da Liu and the main creative team!
This article only discusses with you a brain hole that has not been developed in the movie:
What will the Earth's climate look like when the "Wandering Earth" program starts? Can humans bear it?
First of all, after the Wandering Earth Project begins, the Earth's climate will enter "hell mode" and be completely unlivable.
According to the "Wandering Earth" chronicle set in the film, in 2030, the United Nations announced the "Wandering Earth" plan to the world, which can be divided into 6 stages according to the implementation of the project, requiring a total of 2,500 years and about 100 generations to work together.
- 1 Pre-brake era (2030-2039): dungeons and planetary engine construction;
- 2 Brake Age (2040-2080): The Earth stops spinning;
- 3 Age of Escape (2081-2130): Escape from the Solar System;
- 4 Wandering Age 1: Fly to Proxima Centauri (2130-3930) to accelerate the Earth to five thousandths of the speed of light in 500 years, and then glide for 1300 years;
- 5 Wandering Age 2: Restore the Earth's rotation and begin to slow down;
- 6 moored into Proxima Centauri orbit;
The plot of "The Wandering Earth" takes place in 2075, when the Earth sails near Jupiter, hoping to use the gravitational slingshot effect to make the Earth fly out of the solar system. Image source: "The Wandering Earth" stills
At this whole stage, the earth's climate will undergo a complete "vicissitudes" change!
This article does not discuss whether the earth's crust can withstand it, but about climate and living environment changes.
Infinitely increasing carbon emissions: high temperatures, rising sea levels
In the "pre-brake era" (2030-2039) and brake era (2040-2080), large-scale engineering construction will take place on Earth: the construction of the first phase of the dungeon will begin in 2034, as well as the construction of 10,000 planetary engines with a height of 11,000 meters distributed around the world. Such a large-scale construction will inevitably lead to an unlimited increase in global consumption of fossil fuels, and the current Paris Agreement to curb fossil fuel emissions will automatically stop (the earth is about to be destroyed, and there is no point in asking for the Paris Agreement at this time).
If you use climate models to predict, the climate outlook after the implementation of the "Wandering Earth" project is even more dire than the worst-case scenario currently expected by the scientific community.
Trivia
RCP represents the "Representative Concentration Pathway", which describes the curve of different greenhouse gas concentration changes that may occur in the future, corresponding to different radiation forcing increase scenarios, used to deduce possible changes in the future climate, in different scenarios, population, economy, energy use, greenhouse gas emission concentration, etc. are different, RCP2.6, RCP6, etc. in the figure below represent different scenarios.
RCP 8.5 is a future scenario that does not take any action to reduce emissions (business as usual, no emission reductions) and has been relying on fossil energy to develop the economy, representing an increase of 8.5 W/m2 in radiative forcing levels by 2100.
Under the current high emission scenario (RCP8.5), the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere will be close to 2000 ppm by 2300, and in the large infrastructure of the wandering earth, the global CO2 concentration will reach more than 2000 ppm by 2080, the picture is from the IPCC report.
Under the current high emission scenario (RCP8.5), the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere is close to 2000 ppm by 2300, and the global average temperature will reach 7.8±2.9°C, which will be brought forward to 2080 in the wandering earth, and the global warming will be higher, the picture from the IPCC report
In the era of brakes, by 2080, the global carbon dioxide concentration will reach more than 2000 ppm, the global average temperature will be about 8-10 °C higher than before the industrial revolution (early 19th century), the land warming will be about 10-15 °C, and lethal extreme heat (wet-bulb temperature over 35 °C) will become the norm in most parts of the world. The melting of continental glaciers in Antarctica and Greenland has caused sea levels to rise by more than 60 meters compared with before the industrial revolution, and major coastal cities (New York, Tokyo, London, Shanghai, Beijing, Hong Kong, Tianjin, Singapore, etc.) are all submerged below the sea surface, the Guanzhong area of Shaanxi Province west of Tongguan will become the capital area of the mainland, and the United Nations headquarters will be moved to the Nyingchi area of Tibet.
Deadly high temperatures have become the norm, the world has entered an ice-free state, the sea level is 70 meters higher than the current level, the global coastline has retreated sharply, the mainland coastline has retreated to the Taihang Mountains, and the world's major coastal cities have almost been submerged.
Rotation stops: The global atmospheric circulation is completely altered
Under natural conditions, due to the rotation of the Earth, the formation of three global circulation and prevailing wind systems shape the face of the Earth, including the distribution of global ocean currents, which maintain an inherent route and cycle around the world.
The atmospheric circulation of the Earth's surface is also related to the Earth's rotation, image source: ESA
Due to the slowdown of the earth brought about by braking, the earth gradually stops spinning. Due to the rotation of the Earth, the three global circulation and prevailing wind systems shape the face of the Earth, including the distribution of global ocean currents, which maintain their inherent routes and cycle around the world. When the Earth's rotation disappears, the Coriolis force that forms a stable atmospheric circulation disappears, and the current stable three-circle circulation of the Earth is completely changed, and the mid-latitude westerly wind belt and the low-latitude easterly wind belt disappear.
As the earth stops rotating, day and night alternately disappear, the world will be in the day for half a year, half a year in the night, during the daylight period of the earth's sunny side for half a year, the temperature is extremely high, the maximum temperature will be maintained above 70 °C for a long time, and the central temperature of the back sun side is extremely low, the lowest temperature will drop to minus 60 °C, in a frozen state. A huge warm center is formed near the sunset point on the sunny side, and a huge cold center is formed in the extremely cold center on the back sun. The Earth's atmosphere will be dominated by large-scale convective and turbulent movements. Due to the disappearance of the global-scale wind system, the heat exchange efficiency of the Earth system will be reduced, which will make the average temperature difference between the global sunny and back-sun surfaces reach more than 100 °C.
Since the earth comes to a gradual standstill, there is no need to worry about the devastation and decay caused by the sudden stop.
What happens if the Earth suddenly stops spinning?
If the Earth suddenly stops spinning, everything on the surface, including you and me, will be shot out at the speed of the Earth's rotation at the speed of the Earth's rotation under the action of inertia. This speed varies according to the latitude of the object, the Eskimos living near the Arctic Circle will fly out at a speed of 360 km / h, which is already faster than a car on the highway, and if you happen to be traveling in a country near the equator, when the Earth suddenly stops spinning, you will fly out at a speed of more than 1600 km / h, which has exceeded the speed of sound, but has not yet reached the first cosmic speed, so the buildings, humans, animals, etc. on the surface will not escape the earth. Instead, they collide with each other at breakneck speed, and you can't even hear the loud bang of the collision until some time after the collision occurs.
And if the earth suddenly stops, the atmosphere will continue to move under inertia, and the atmosphere that continues to rotate and the earth's surface produce great relative speed and friction, and the wind speed will be greater than all typhoons that humans have experienced.
The absolute speed of the earth's atmosphere is super large, and winds of more than 1600 km / h will instantly blow in the equatorial region, and the area between 45 degrees north and south latitude, which inhabits about 85% of the world's total population, will also be hit by supersonic winds. These hurricanes, which are 14 times larger than a Category 12 typhoon, can flatten buildings protruding from land in an instant, leaving only ruins everywhere. It can be said that the creatures on the surface of the earth will be destroyed in an instant.
If the Earth suddenly stops, the maximum wind speed will be more than ten times that of the typhoon, image source: NOAA
The ocean is boiling, and the climate hell is coming
Of course, the above situation does not take into account the conditions of thermal radiation of the planetary engine, and if the thermal radiation of the planetary engine is considered, the situation can be completely different.
Planetary engines are achieved by heavy nuclear fusion, and part of their energy is used to propel the Earth, and the other part must be converted into thermal energy. The total thrust of the world's 10,000 planetary engines reaches 150 trillion tons, and its power is 40 times that of the solar energy currently received by the earth, which is equivalent to 40 suns shining on the world, causing the earth to heat up very terrifying. Of course, the conversion efficiency from nuclear energy to mechanical energy must not reach 100%, and even reaching 90% is also a fantasy, as long as there is about 2.5% of the heat radiation, which is equivalent to the amount of sunlight. At present, the world's mainstream car engine thermal efficiency is between 30-40%, individual engine thermal efficiency can exceed 40%, so the thermal radiation of planetary engines will cause several to dozens of solar radiation, if calculated according to the radiation of 10 suns, the temperature of the earth's surface will exceed 200 ° C, the global ocean boiling, which is the real hell.
As long as the planetary engine is started, the above situation is completely unavoidable. The high temperature and boiling ocean will wipe out all life on the Earth's surface, the amount of water vapor in the atmosphere will increase dramatically, further exacerbating the greenhouse effect, and the global temperature will continue to rise, which will most likely reach the condition of Venus. Water vapor enters the upper atmosphere, under the action of fusion flames and solar wind, large-scale escape from the upper layers of the Earth, and after 2500 years of wandering the end of the stage of the Earth, it is likely to lose all surface moisture, and when the planetary engine turns off, the Earth will be as barren as Mars.
This is a terrible future, and after assessing this, I wonder if the United Nations will launch the "Wandering Earth" program?
In 2023, I will work with a group of young meteorologists to pay attention to the continuous fermentation and development of the climate crisis, bring you the latest climate information and disaster prevention and mitigation knowledge, and hope to help enhance the awareness and ability of the whole society to prevent and reduce disasters, minimize the casualties and economic losses caused by disasters, and protect our homeland together.