Chapter 114 Earth Climate Change_1

Crisis Year 25, high temperatures persisted, with floods, freezes, droughts, and other extreme weather events continuously unfolding, tormenting everyone with massive floods and severe drought.

More critically, the number of unemployed rose day by day, and those without jobs faced starvation. An increasing number of people migrated, even forming waves of refugees, their only choice being to move to either big cities or the countryside. In the countryside, they relied on unskilled techniques for farming.

As for the big cities, they couldn't accommodate so many refugees, who were left to dwell in slums. When an overwhelming number of migrants took over urban territories, the previously stable environment was disrupted, and all sorts of resources became the focus of conflict.

The intense heat, frequent flooding, and significant reduction in food production led to social unrest and increasingly tense international relations.

In Crisis Year 26, an event occurred that would impact the next few centuries: a supervolcano erupted at the bottom of the Bering Sea. The eruption was of VEI-8 level (the Tonga volcano 22 years prior was level 5, and there has been no discovery of level 9 volcanoes on Earth to date), such a volcanic eruption occurs only once every tens of thousands of years.

This volcanic eruption wasn't even a natural disaster; it was a man-made one.

The eruption site was located at the intersection of the Eurasian Plate, the American Plate, and the Pacific Plate. Although this is a meeting point for three major plates, the terrain of the plates is flat, and the Arctic (American Plate) above is also a basin, overall being fairly stable, without any major volcanic eruptions in history.

It was during an operation involving explosive resource extraction on the Bering Sea bed (the Bering Sea is relatively shallow and easy to mine), that the intersection of a rock layer was breached, allowing huge amounts of compressed gases trapped in the sea bottom's rock layer cavity to escape. This altered the pressure within the rock layers, and the consequences could only be described by the butterfly effect.

A tug on a single thing could affect everything else. Combined with the pressure from the sea, the movement trends of the American and Pacific Plates changed abruptly, and a dormant supervolcano erupted. The thermal column reached heights of more than 25 kilometers, and volcanic ash plunged directly into the stratosphere, blocking out the sun.

Simultaneously, violent earthquakes and tsunamis erupted, causing enormous losses to coastal cities.

The volcanic ash obstructed sunlight from reaching Earth, leading to global cooling. Meteorologists predicted that this would result in several years of "Year Without a Summer," or it could directly usher in an Ice Age.

Of course, with Earth's current technology, humanity wouldn't despair. Although suffering great losses, humans still had the capability to face such disasters.

In low-latitude areas, large-scale landform modifications could make them suitable for food cultivation. Even if the temperature dropped, it was possible to cultivate crops resistant to cold and drought, and massive greenhouse farming and marine aquaculture could be carried out.

The lack of water resources could also be resolved by constructing more artificial canals, and water quality issues in various locations could be improved through technological means. With today's technology, the only concern was the scale of the engineering work; technologically, there were no issues.

Furthermore, thanks to the development of nanotechnology, nano desalination membranes had become very advanced, allowing the establishment of major desalination bases on beaches.

Desalinated water could be transported to various places via giant pipelines or artificial canals. Naturally, the most significant issue was the substantial energy consumption required to transport water resources from low to high elevations.

There are always more solutions than problems. With humanity's half-step into space, such climate issues could be managed, as long as every country adjusted strategies and responded to disasters promptly. It was certain that disasters could be kept within controllable limits. There might be food shortages and turmoil, but there wouldn't be a catastrophic disaster.

However, the unforeseen situation occurred. The eruption not only brought about earthquakes, tsunamis, and global cooling but also a large-scale, destructive disaster.

The VEI-8 level eruption injected a massive amount of warm and salty substances into the sea, while the melting of the Arctic Ice caused an influx of fresh water into the Pacific. Acting together, they altered the thermohaline circulation. The North Pacific current was completely cut off, preventing the warm current from transporting to the Arctic and then back into circulation.

It was similar to the "Younger Dryas" event that occurred over 10,000 years ago, which only involved the melting of Arctic ice, with a large amount of fresh water entering the North Atlantic, affecting the thermohaline circulation. This led to a cooling event in the Northern Hemisphere that lasted for decades. The Earth's average temperature dropped by about 7-8°C, leading to a long climate cooling period that lasted for about 1,300 years.

If that were all, it wouldn't have been too dire, and humanity still had confidence to combat it.

All over, disaster prevention centers were established. Worldwide, agricultural bases moved near the lower latitudes, and desalination projects were underway. The construction of artificial rivers and pipelines was in full swing; even if the average temperature dropped by 10 degrees, humanity was still confident about getting through it.

Moreover, it was discovered that the volcanic ash didn't have as severe an impact on the low latitudes as predicted. Currently, the sunlight in equatorial and low-latitude regions was sufficient to meet the normal needs of crops, which eased everyone's concerns. Food security was also a top priority for nations around the globe.

Humanity also endured this year amidst severe cold and struggle, yet they were still unaware that the greatest disaster was about to arrive.

In Crisis Year 27, when people thought the disaster had passed and governments relaxed their vigilance, the latest reports from meteorologists sent shivers down their spines and plunged them into an icy cellar.

Meteorologists had originally predicted that due to the disconnection of the warm current in the North Pacific, the Arctic temperature would drop drastically. Polar and temperate convection would form an ultra-cold cyclonic storm in the polar regions, which would then move southward, causing massive damage to certain areas with wind force levels possibly reaching 18, but the southward extent was not expected to exceed 50 degrees north latitude.

Moreover, the speed of the climate catastrophe would not be too fast; Earth is a massive ecosystem capable of slowing down such drastic changes to a certain extent.

However, this kind of storm had not formed. After extensive verification and data collection, they finally understood.

There was no hope; humanity was incapable of combating this natural disaster.

The end had come...

The fundamental cause of wind formation due to air convection is not temperature difference, but pressure difference, and the essence of pressure is the difference in atmospheric density. Everyone knew this, even considered it as one and the same thing, but under certain circumstances, temperature difference and density difference are not the same thing.

In addition, everyone had also overlooked two things:

First, the composition of various gases in the atmosphere had already undergone some changes.

In the last 30 years, due to humanity's excessive and destructive exploitation of Earth's resources, Earth's atmosphere is now enveloped in a thick layer of dust particles, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides. The current sky is a dull yellow; even the sun can only be seen as a silhouette through the "dust clouds."

The concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere is now 600 times higher than at its historical peak. Certain areas are abnormally hot, and this heat cannot be transported to other places through atmospheric circulation. The distinct zones of the temperate and frigid zones have also become chaotic under the current climate influences.

This impact has also affected the stratosphere; the height of the troposphere has also changed, rising from the original 10 kilometers to 15 kilometers.

Second, the volcanic ash from the eruption did not disperse throughout the Earth's atmosphere via the stratosphere as expected. This should have occurred within a few weeks.

However, the reality was that a massive amount of volcanic ash had formed a huge ash ring at the raised troposphere between the latitudes of 50 and 70 degrees north, with a thickness of approximately 2000 kilometers, completely encircling the Arctic Circle.

It was as if a giant collar had been put on Earth, which is why the effects of volcanic ash on low latitude regions were not as bad as expected: nearly half of the volcanic ash was trapped within that massive collar.

Although the ash ring in the troposphere would churn violently, it would not dissipate easily. It was expected to persist for a significantly long time, with meteorologists predicting it would remain for over a decade.

The volcanic ash in the stratosphere, although less impactful, would persist for hundreds to nearly a thousand years, representing an immeasurable effect on the Earth as a whole.

PS: This chapter borrows some theories from the real "Younger Dryas" event that took place on Earth. The "Younger Dryas" event was not only due to a change in thermohaline circulation but also a factor of a comet impact.

The theory of the fresh water input into the Arctic causing a change in thermohaline circulation in the movie "The Day After Tomorrow" is a bit far-fetched but still reasonable. However, the scale of the super-cold cyclonic storm formed was too large, and the southward extent too great. The author found it too unreasonable, as such a scale of storm could not possibly form on Earth.

The author's conjecture is still that the eruption of a supervolcano on the sea bed caused the change in ocean currents. As for whether the principle of volcanism is logical, the author is not a geological researcher, and experts in this field are welcome to correct it.

The next chapter will introduce this giant collar, which is the real cause of the great disaster.