Winter is coming — and this climate scientist can tell you why. ️
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00:00There are certainly similarities between what's going on in our world
00:04into what's unfolding in this epic saga in Game of Thrones.
00:08Certainly the climate plays a really key role.
00:11All we had to do to simulate the world of Game of Thrones
00:14was to move the continents around a little bit.
00:24Winter is coming.
00:25The model that we use to predict Earth's climate
00:27you could use to predict the weather on Mars,
00:31or the weather on Venus, or any planet.
00:33The way we set up our climate simulator, if you like,
00:36was that in the Northern Hemisphere it was always winter
00:39and in the Southern Hemisphere it was always summer.
00:41And one of the things I found out is that if you do that in the model,
00:43it actually gets, year after year,
00:46the Northern Hemisphere gets colder and colder and colder
00:49and the Southern Hemisphere gets warmer and warmer and warmer.
00:51So much strong winds and energy is in the climate system
00:55that basically the model just can't cope anymore.
00:57Basically the model breaks down
00:58and these winters couldn't really last forever
01:00and they do have to flip between long winters and long summers,
01:04as it's described in the books.
01:05So maybe George R.R. Martin was in fact a natural climatologist.
01:15There's some good feedback from people who have said
01:18that they've learned a lot about climate change as a result of it.
01:21And that really was the main aim of this, really,
01:25was to engage with people about climate change
01:27who maybe wouldn't necessarily otherwise.
01:29This really strong influence of climate
01:32on the whole of society and the human race
01:35is something that is very common between the two.
01:38And if we ignore that, our peril.
01:41That's also one of the metaphors
01:44that comes out in Game of Thrones as well.
01:55I feel I relate more to him.
01:57I think he's a scholar, if you like.
01:59So I saw myself and perhaps a bit more like him.
02:02I think Jon Snow is far too brave for me and far too good looking.
02:06You know nothing, Jon Snow.