"State of Chaos"

Past studies have shown that past shifts in Earth's climate patterns have usually been driven by external factors, such as super volcanic eruptions, impacts of small bodies, solar activity, or changes in the Earth's orbit. This has never happened on Earth in the past.

In other words, what the Earth's climate will look like in the future depends largely on human activities in the future, and because of this, the scientific community has been working on the impact of human activities on the Earth's climate.

Recently, a team of researchers from the Department of Physics and Astronomy at the University of Porto published a paper showing that if the impact of human activities on the Earth's climate is not effectively controlled, the planet could enter an unpredictable "Chaotic Behaviour" in the future.

According to the team's astrophysicist Orfeu Bertolami, the study uses a mathematical method called a "logistic map" to simulate the future climate of the Earth, which is well suited to describe a system which The study uses a mathematical method called "logistic map" to model the future climate of the Earth, which is well suited to describe a system in which some variables are growing and reaching certain limits.

As we know, the greatest impact of human activity on the Earth's climate is the release of greenhouse gases (mainly carbon dioxide), which accumulate in the Earth's atmosphere and cause additional greenhouse effects due to nature's inability to effectively remove them, leading to a continuous increase in the Earth's average temperature.

(Note: The sun's short-wave radiation raises the temperature of the Earth's surface, after which the heat from the Earth's surface is "reflected" back into space by long-wave radiation.)

Therefore, in this study, "greenhouse gas emissions" became the main variable for astrophysicists to predict the future climate of the Earth, and the prediction results show that if humans can take effective measures to control greenhouse gas emissions in the future, then the best case scenario is that in the next few decades, the amount of greenhouse gas emissions will reach a limit, after which it will not continue to increase.

In this case, the Earth's average temperature will stabilize at a higher temperature, and although this will still have adverse effects on humans, such as more melting glaciers leading to sea level rise, or more extreme weather, the Earth's climate will at least be stable in general, and specifically, there will still be regular and repeatable climate patterns on Earth.

So what's the worst-case scenario? Researchers predict that if the release of greenhouse gases is not effectively controlled, the average temperature of the Earth will continue to rise in the future and the Earth will gradually become chaotic, and when it exceeds a threshold, the Earth's climate system will enter a state of unpredictable "chaos". When it exceeds a critical value, the Earth's climate system will enter an unpredictable "chaotic state".

In this state, the Earth's climate will become unpredictable. In some years, the Earth's climate may appear to be "calm", while in more years, extreme heat, extreme cold, extreme drought, extreme precipitation, and other severe weather will appear on the Earth very frequently. Even if we know the current situation of the Earth system, we cannot predict what kind of climate the Earth will have in the future.

In short, the Earth's climate pattern will become chaotic, and humans will lose the ability to control and promote the Earth's climate to be stable and conducive to the habitability of humans and the Earth's biosphere as a whole.

Of course, the Earth can not always be in this state, after a long time, the Earth's climate should change to another smooth pattern, but from the Earth's history, every great change in the Earth's climate will lead to many creatures from the Earth's stage, so if such a thing happens, then humans will undoubtedly face a very serious test.

Obviously, between the above "best case" and "worst case", there is no "bad case", because if we cannot do If the "best case scenario" is not achieved, the average temperature of the Earth will keep rising, and the Earth will gradually tend to chaos until it enters a "chaotic state", the difference is only "fast The difference is only a matter of "fast" and "slow".

So, will the Earth enter a "chaotic state" in the future? For this question, the team's astrophysicist Alf Bertolamiansweredr that, although the current situation is not optimistic, if mankind is now to take effective measures is not too late.