• TheButtonJustSpins
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    1 year ago

    I mean, eventually, a runaway greenhouse effect would be the end of life on the planet.

    • CitizenKong@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      End of most life. We are already in the sixth mass extinction event, the Holocene extinction, which is characterized by an extinction rate that is 100 to 1000 times higher than the normal background extinction rate and is also 10 to 100 times higher than the extinction rate of any prior major extinction event in the history of this planet. (Source) It is, however, unlikely that all life will cease to exist since there will always remain habitable zones on the planet. A true runaway greenhouse effect like the one that likely happened to Venus is (very very probably) not possible, because there is literally not enough CO2 on this planet to push Earth into complete inhabitability (Source) It will happen to the Earth naturally in about a billion years though since the sun will have become ten percent brighter by then, which will first turn the oceans into water vapor (accelerating warming via runaway greenhouse effect) and finally turn the entire planet into one big desert with surface temperatures of over 900 degrees Celsius.