Name: The emergent patterns of climate change
Uploaded: 2014-05-01T15:02:18Z
Duration: 11 min 56 s
Description: You can't understand climate change in pieces, says climate scientist Gavin Schmidt. It's the whole, or it's nothing. In this illuminating talk, he explains how he studies the big picture of climate change with mesmerizing models that illustrate the endlessly complex interactions of small-scale environmental events.

Ice–ocean boundary conditions for coupled models

Total Precipitable Water

Southern Hemisphere climate response to ozone changes and greenhouse gas increases

Climate simulations for 1880-2003 with GISS Model E

Dynamic winter climate response to large tropical volcanic eruptions since 1600

Modeling an Abrupt Climate Change

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*The Forgiving Air*

Gavin Schmidt: The emergent patterns of climate change

The emergent patterns of climate change

You can't understand climate change in pieces, says climate scientist Gavin Schmidt. It's the whole, or it's nothing. In this illuminating talk, he explains how he studies the big picture of climate change with mesmerizing models that illustrate the endlessly complex interactions of small-scale environmental events.

Understanding climate change requires seeing the planet as a single, interconnected system, not a collection of isolated parts. Patterns in climate stretch across 14 orders of magnitude, from tiny cloud seeds to the scale of the Earth itself. Modern climate models, built from millions of lines of code, capture how countless small processes combine to create vast, unexpected patterns—like swirling storms and shifting winds—that no one piece can explain alone. These models have skillfully matched past events, but using their predictions demands human choices about our collective future.