Transcript of YouTube Video: Climate Science, Risk and Solutions: The MIT Climate Primer

[Music]

we know that you know that the Earth is

warming but you might have questions

like how did scientists figure out that

this warming is happening and that it's

caused by humans how strong is the

evidence really what risks can we expect

and what can we do about them climate

science is not a new field by the time

of the American Civil War scientists

understood that the Earth is kept warm

by a a handful of gases that make up

less than 1% of our atmosphere but that

these gases keep the sun's radiation

from being immediately lost to outer

space and they understood that if humans

were to change the amount of these gases

in our atmosphere our climate would be

transformed today these predictions are

coming to life and as global

temperatures rise and extreme weather

intensifies you probably have more

questions the online primer climate

science R and solutions from the

Massachusetts Institute of Technology is

our effort to bring the story of climate

science to everyone who wants to learn

used in universities and high schools

around the world this primer answers how

scientists know what they know about

climate change it takes Learners through

the history of climate science the risks

we face now and will face in the future

and the options we have to overcome

climate change and secure a safe and

prosperous planet for ourselves and for

future generations to do this we worked

with mit's Professor Carrie Emanuel an

acclaimed climate Communicator who has

been studying the Earth's weather system

for over 40 years so let's let him share

a peek at what you'll learn in climate

science risk and solutions from MIT

human cause climate change began with

the Industrial Revolution when people

began burning large quantities of coal

and oil releasing carbon dioxide into

the atmosphere and although scientists

have long predicted that this influx of

CO2 would raise the Earth's temperature

now that we can see it happening a very

reasonable question people ask is how

can we Trace these Trends all the way

back to the dawn of the fossil fuel age

surely that's too long ago for us to

have accurate records of world

temperatures let alone how much carbon

dioxide was in the air in fact by the

19th century people were using

thermometers and keeping careful records

of temperature in enough places around

the globe for us to reconstruct average

World temperatures naturally most of

these measurements were taken at

landbased stations but some came from

the ocean surface too this is crucial

data when trying to learn the Earth's

average surface temperature since of

course the oceans take up most of the

world's surface it's not enough to

Simply average all the temperature

records we have together one must

carefully account for the uneven

distribution of temperature measurements

around the world the way growing cities

have become warmer than the surrounding

Countryside and many other variables but

one way to know if our calculations are

good is to see if different groups

working independently of each other have

reached the same conclusions and indeed

the five major groups tracking global

temperatures have produced very similar

records discovering the same ups and

downs from year to year since the 1960s

we have been able to add satellite

measurements of infrared radiation at

the Earth's surface to our arsenal of

instruments and it is reassuring to see

that these two track closely with the

thermometer record from around the world

what about carbon dioxide how can we

really know the temperature rise traced

by all these different sources is caused

by Rising CO2 levels indeed it was not

until the 1950s that scientists began

measuring the CO2 content of the

atmosphere directly for climate

scientists it's not enough to know that

CO2 levels have been rising since the

1950s we want to return to the beginning

of the Industrial Revolution and our

greatest asset here is ice taken from

Greenland and Antarctica as snow falls

in these frigid parts of the world it

traps small samples of air along with it

because the snow never melts over time

it becomes compressed in layers of ice

with tiny bubbles inside that preserve

ancient air this record of air samples

goes back hundreds of thousands of years

by drilling into the ice and collecting

cores scientists can create a

year-by-year record of our past

atmosphere and it is these ice core

samples that show us the history of CO2

in the atmosphere which we now know held

steady at around 280 parts per million

for almost all of recorded human history

and tell began to creep up in the 19th

century and truly take off in the mid

20th to the point that the CO2 content

of the atmosphere is fully 50% higher

than it was 150 years ago from these

combined records we can now see plainly

what climate scientists have predicted

all along Co two levels have been rising

as we burn fossil fuels and temperatures

have been rising with them the pace of

climate science has never been faster

which is why mit's climate science risk

and solutions has been newly updated for

2024 with the latest data and scientific

consensus and with help from MIT open

learning all this information has been

paired with fun online learning

techniques where you can watch listen to

and play with the data all of this is

connected to other learning resources

from from MIT that will help you drill

deeper into the topics that interest you

the most whether that's the basic

science of the greenhouse effect the

climate models that help scientists peer

into our future climate or the solutions

at hand from renewable energy to carbon

capture are you ready to have your

questions answered about climate change

and climate science then visit climate

primer. mit.edu to begin