Is Climate Change Just A Lot Of Hot Air?

How can global warming of less than 1 degree Celsius drive extreme weather? You might need to look beneath the surface (of the ocean) for the answer.

This video was illustrated and animated by Jesse Agar. Check out his channel @ThisPlaceChannel

LEARN MORE
**************
To learn more about this topic, start your googling with these keywords:
- Extreme weather: Conditions and events that occur with low frequency, but which often have significant impact on people and nature; e.g., heat waves, droughts, heavy downpours, floods, blizzards, windstorms, hurricanes
- Ocean heat content: the energy stored as heat in the ocean
- Evapotranspiration: the movement of water vapor from land, water, plant, or animal surface into the atmosphere, driven by the drying power of the air

SUPPORT MINUTEEARTH
**************************
If you like what we do, you can help us!:
- Share this video with your friends and family
- Leave us a comment (we read them!)

CREDITS
*********
Peter Reich | Script Writer
Emily Elert | Script Editor
Henry Reich | Narrator
Jesse Agar | Illustration, Video Editing and Animation
Nathaniel Schroeder | Music

MinuteEarth is produced by Neptune Studios LLC

OUR STAFF
************
Emily Elert • Alex Reich • Henry Reich
Peter Reich • Ever Salazar • Kate Yoshida

OUR LINKS
************

REFERENCES
**************
Church, J. A., N. J. White, L. F. Konikow, C. M. Domingues, J. G. Cogley, E. Rignot, J. M. Gregory, M. R. van den Broeke, A. J. Monaghan, and I. Velicogna (2011), Revisiting the Earth's sea-level and energy budgets from 1961 to 2008, Geophys. Res. Lett., 38, L18601, doi:10.1029/2011GL048794.

Diffenbaugh, N. S., Swain D. L. & Touma, D. Anthropogenic warming has increased drought risk in California. PNAS, doi 10.1073/pnas.1422385112 (2015). Published online.

Gouretski, V., J. Kennedy, T. Boyer, and A. Köhl (2012), Consistent near-surface ocean warming since 1900 in two largely independent observing networks, Geophys. Res. Lett., 39, L19606, doi:10.1029/2012GL052975.

IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change): Climate change 2013: The Physical science basis. Fifth Assessment report of the IPCC [Stocker, T. F. et al. eds)]. Cambridge Univ. Press. 1535 pp. (2013).

Trenberth, K. E. Framing the way to relate climate extremes to climate change. Climatic Change, 115, 283-290, doi: 10.1007/s10584-012-0441-5 (2012).

Trenberth, K. E., Dai, A., van der Schrier, G., Jones, P. D., Barichivich, J., Briffa, K. R. & Sheffield, J. Global warming and changes in drought. Nature Climate Change, 4, 17-22, doi:10.1038/NCLIMATE2067 (2014).

Trenberth, K. E., JTFasullo, TG Shepherd. Attribution of climate extreme events. Nature Climate Change (in review).

Trenberth, K.E. (personal communication).

[JacobLexicon]

"The energy equivalent of an atomic bomb exploding every second for the last 100 years"

That's 3, 153, 600, 000 or, put in words, 3 billion, 153 million and 600 thousand atomic bombs exploding.

That's insane

[ghuegel]

0:41 - Does Disney know that water molecules have been violating their copyright?

[arooobine]

So we just have to find and stop the 100 year old man who's been nuking the ocean every second his whole life.

[mpersan]

Even though I liked this video, I wish there wasn't a need for videos like this.

[ultrasuperkiller]

I wish this was a requirement for every us politician to watch

[Rulerofwax]

I remember 8th grade science class when we were talking about the possibility of global warming (before climate change was more broadly accepted) and the book said the temperature could rise a few degrees. My friend and I were both confused as to how such a small difference in temperature could make such an impactful change. My teacher just said that it does make a big change and left it at that. He never bothered (and I doubt he even knew) to explain all of this. This explanation is much more insightful!

[LoScur]

0:28 "that increase in ocean heat content is the energy equivalent of an atomic bomb exploding every second for the last 100 years"
That sort of quantification is hard to brush off. Good job, MinuteEarth!

[damienlbphant]

These videos are never long enough! I don't mean this in the sense that they contain insufficient information, but in the sense that I can never get enough of them! They are so good they always leave me wanting more!

Excellent work as always, Henry! (and team)

[Naiadryade]

Excellent, succinct and understandable explanation of this concept. Glad I can now point people to this video. Thank you!!

Also, the atomic bomb every second for 100 years thing blew my mind. I already was aware of the basic concepts this video talks about, but I didn't know that that number was so freaking high. Damn.

[Richie_Godsil]

Did anybody else think of Futurama, when they would just put a big ice cube in the ocean to cool it off? Lol

[Ghillieguy]

We need ice cubes people, a lot of them

[Samantha_Says]

From living in England my entire life, it is obvious that climate change is real. In Summer when I was younger we'd have about 7 days where we'd *need* to drink iced water. That sort of weather began about two weeks ago this year and shows no sign of stopping until Summer comes to an end.

[PureInsanity]

I like how Henry was like: "bitch, it's basic physics"

[RobbieSherman]

How can we get this on paid adverts on TV channels!? Any thoughts? Maybe a kickstarter?

[aaronanderson]

Always so clear and so interesting! I love learning Science with you MinuteEarthlings

[MrAgreeandDisagree]

The most understandable explanation of global warming that I've ever seen.

[whoeveriamiam]

thank you for explaining this stuff so clearly! I hope this will help more people understand that this is an important matter.

[marlonyo]

0 dislike now wow.  wait till deniers start giving thumbs down

[manbob]

Why won't the leaders understand this

[Edzward]

OK MinuteEarth, you deserve this thumbs up just for the title of the video.