The End of Planetary Atmospheres

Planet Venus is a hellish place and seemingly hostile to life, although recent measurements claimed the detection of biogenic signatures. Less than a billion years ago, Venus’s atmosphere underwent a dramatic runaway greenhouse effect rendering it likely to be uninhabitable. This lecture will consider what can be learned about the possibility of catastrophic climate change on Planet Earth, in the light of thermodynamics and of what has happened to Earth’s twin, Venus. A lecture by Professor ...