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From mind-blowing facts about our planet to the awakening of supervolcanoes, Earth's most remarkable and alarming features are being unveiled. Meanwhile, tornadoes are undergoing terrifying changes, raising questions about what the future holds for our planet.
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00:00You know, those fluffy cumulus clouds you see in the sky
00:03weigh as much as a Boeing 747 or 100 elephants.
00:08Hey, if you don't believe me, let's do the math.
00:11Scientists figured out that the density of water inside a cumulus cloud
00:15is around a half a gram per cubic meter.
00:18Now, clouds come in all sizes, but an average cloud of this type
00:22is shaped somewhat like a cube and has a volume of 1 billion cubic meters.
00:27When you multiply it by density, you get an impressive result of slightly over a million pounds.
00:34And, in case you were wondering, this giant stays afloat
00:37because its density is lower than that of the air surrounding it.
00:42Giraffes are 30 times more likely to get struck by lightning than you are.
00:46There were five official fatal cases involving giraffes and lightning between 1996 and 2010.
00:54But since their population worldwide is just around 140,000 during that period,
01:00the fatality rate is rather high per 1,000 of giraffes per year.
01:04Lightning bolts love tall objects, so giraffes are unfortunately an easy hit.
01:09But scientists think they might have learned to deal with it
01:12and seek shelter during a thunderstorm or move quickly to thickly vegetated areas.
01:19The oldest animals on Earth are glass sponges.
01:22They can live up to 15,000 years.
01:25Scientists found the oldest glass sponge in the Ross Sea, a part of Antarctica.
01:30In another part of the world, the East China Sea,
01:33scientists found the skeleton of a glass sponge that lived for about 11,000 years.
01:39These sponges might have been around during the last ice age.
01:42They lived their whole lives stuck to hard surfaces, filtering water to snack on bacteria and plankton.
01:50So, our Earth is spinning more slowly now, which means our days are getting a bit longer over time.
01:56Long ago, I wasn't around then, a day on Earth was only about 19 hours, but then it grew to
02:0324,
02:03mostly because the moon's gravity pulls on Earth and slows it down.
02:07Long ago, different extreme things go on in nature that can change the speed of Earth's spin in the short
02:13term.
02:13An earthquake in Chile in 2010 may have made our day a little bit shorter, according to scientists.
02:20But since 2020, the days have been getting longer again.
02:25Now, scientists still can't decide if water is actually wet or not.
02:29Some of them say water isn't wet itself, but it can make other things wet when it sticks to them.
02:34Others think water is wet because it's a liquid and has moisture.
02:38Water can feel wet because it cools your skin as it evaporates.
02:43How wet something is depends on two forces.
02:46Cohesive forces that keep water droplets together and adhesive forces that make water stick to things.
02:53Water doesn't tick well to waterproof fabrics, and they stay dry because cohesive forces are stronger in that case.
03:01Guess what? There is no map of the world that would be 100% accurate, unless it's life-size.
03:07Our planet is round and paper is flat. Duh!
03:11Back in the 16th century, Gerardus Macator designed a cylindrical map projection that is still used and named after him.
03:18This concept is good for navigation because the north is always up, but the top and bottom parts get stretched
03:24out.
03:24So, Greenland looks 14 times larger than it really is, and Alaska is the size of Brazil.
03:31Now, if for some reason you ever decided to stack all the world's germs and bacteria on top of each
03:37other,
03:38they would stretch for 10 billion light-years.
03:40But you wouldn't even see this thread, because it would be about 75 times thinner than a human hair.
03:47If you wrap this long line of bacteria around our galaxy, the Milky Way, it would circle around it more
03:53than 20,000 times.
03:55Ooh, my brain!
03:59It turns out there's rust on the moon, and it may have traveled all the way from Earth to get
04:04there.
04:05Now, rust usually needs oxygen and water to form, and the moon has almost none of either.
04:10But when this celestial body passes through a part of space called Earth's magnetotail, oxygen from Earth can reach it
04:18with solar winds.
04:19This oxygen may have combined with tiny amounts of water and iron on the moon's surface to create rust.
04:27Now, even a tiny asteroid can knock our planet out of its orbit.
04:31But don't worry, you probably won't even notice any difference.
04:34The effect of an impact will depend on many things, like how strong the space rock is, how fast it's
04:41going, and what kind of ground it hits.
04:43Most of the time, when space rocks hit Earth, they break apart or turn to gas before they reach the
04:49ground.
04:49But big ones, like the one that wiped out the dinosaurs, can cause huge problems, like big waves, earthquakes, and
04:57even change the weather.
04:59The Earth isn't solid like a rock on the inside, but more like squishy clay, because of the very high
05:05heat and pressure deep underground.
05:07This squishiness allows the mantle to move very slowly over millions of years.
05:12And that's why we get earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, and the shifting of continents.
05:18During the last ice age, huge heavy glaciers sat on top of Earth's surface, pressing down on the squishy mantle
05:24underneath.
05:25This made the mantle sink a bit.
05:27When the ice melted, the mantle started pushing back up, and the land began to rise again.
05:33Even today, in places like Canada, Greenland, and Scandinavia, the land is still rising because of this.
05:41Our planet is covered with cosmic dust.
05:44About 5,000 tons of it reach the surface of Earth every year.
05:49This interstellar substance is smaller than a grain of sand, and often even thinner than a human hair.
05:54Scientists go all the way to the middle of Antarctica, where it barely snows.
05:59And the snow is super clean to spot those particles.
06:02Most of this dust comes from comets.
06:06If you're an introvert, Greenland is the ideal place for you.
06:10It is the least densely populated area in the world, with only 0.1 person per square mile.
06:16Wow, I've never actually seen a tenth of a person.
06:19Anyway, most of Greenland is covered in ice, so people live mainly along the West Coast.
06:24Oh, and by the way, it's been inhabited for over 4,500 years, so it must not be that bad
06:31after all.
06:33Guess what?
06:34The ground you walk on is actually recycled.
06:37First, hot melted rock from magma comes to the surface and cools down to become solid rock.
06:43Then, thanks to tectonic forces, the rock gets pushed up to the surface.
06:48Over time, wind, rain, and other forces break pieces of the rock off.
06:53They get carried away and eventually settle down in layers.
06:56These layers get squished together, forming sedimentary rocks, like sandstone.
07:01Sometimes, if these sedimentary rocks get pushed deep under the Earth's surface,
07:05the heat and pressure cook them into a new type of rock called metamorphic rock.
07:10A long time ago, life on Earth might have been purple instead of green.
07:15A molecular biologist from the University of Maryland thinks that the very first microbes
07:20used a special molecule to capture sunlight that made them look purple.
07:25Today, plants are green because they use chlorophyll to absorb sunlight and turn it into energy.
07:30But before chlorophyll existed, retinol molecules did the same job.
07:35It soaked up green light from the sun and reflected red and purple light,
07:39which made the microbes look violet and like little tiny grapes.
07:44Really?
07:45Our planet's biggest and meanest supervolcanoes are waking up.
07:50When they erupt, you'll surely notice it,
07:52even if you live thousands of miles away from the epicenter.
07:55Scientists are worried we might not have enough time to prepare and deal
07:59with the consequences of a supereruption.
08:03There's some volcanic activity close to the Italian city of Naples.
08:07And no, it has nothing to do with the famous Mount Vesuvius, but with another volcano.
08:13This one is harder to see, as it doesn't have a tall peak like Vesuvius.
08:17But don't let this bad guy trick you.
08:19It could be way more dangerous than its giant neighbor.
08:22It does have a huge crater that's about 8 miles wide.
08:25This volcano is called Campi Flegre, and it's actually one of the largest volcanoes in Europe,
08:31sitting under the town of Pozzuoli.
08:34So, Campi Flegre erupted 39,000 years ago,
08:37with a bang so massive it spread ash across the whole Mediterranean region.
08:42It also caused the temperature to drop by over 16 degrees Fahrenheit across Eastern Europe.
08:47It was the biggest volcanic eruption in Europe in 200,000 years.
08:51Since then, Campi Flegre has had smaller eruptions, and the last one happened in 1538.
08:58Now the area is full of small craters, hot springs, and bubbling pools.
09:02And they're all proof that this volcano is still very much alive and brewing something.
09:08Since the early 2000s, the ground in the giant crater and the town nearby
09:12have been slowly rising by about 1 to 1.5 inches every year.
09:17There were at least 150 earthquakes that shook this supervolcano lately.
09:22In May 2024, there was a 4.4 magnitude in the area, the biggest in the last 40 years.
09:29Residents had to leave their homes and camp outside, fearing there would be more earthquakes.
09:33No one knows how Campi Flegre is going to behave in the following months or years.
09:38But the authorities are organizing evacuation exercises to prepare the population just in case.
09:46The Italian volcano looks like an innocent kitten compared to the real giants, like Yellowstone.
09:52For a volcano to deserve the title of a super one, it must be able to produce catastrophic scale eruptions
09:59and eject huge amounts of magma, ash, and volcanic gases.
10:02The Yellowstone giant meets these criteria.
10:06Even though it moves from time to time, the Yellowstone supervolcano hasn't erupted for 640,000 years.
10:12But when it does wake up, it might erupt with incredible power.
10:17About the same amount as 10 huge nuclear power stations can produce.
10:21Under the ground, beneath Yellowstone, there's a superhot area full of molten rock called magma.
10:28As more magma moves into a big space called a magma chamber, the ground above starts to swell or rise.
10:35When the magma cools down, the ground falls.
10:38Between 2004 and 2009, the ground at Yellowstone rose by almost 10 inches, but then it started to slowly go
10:46back down in 2010.
10:48Scientists aren't sure if it's going to erupt anytime soon.
10:52There's also another big volcano called Long Valley in California that has been active since 1980, and it can be
11:00a really big threat.
11:01Scientists studying this supervolcano found out that before its biggest eruption, 760,000 years ago, the buildup may have taken
11:10less than a year.
11:12Now, that's bad news.
11:14Because a supervolcano eruption can have a huge effect on the world, like the eruption of the Toba volcano in
11:20Sumatra around 74,000 years ago.
11:23It became the biggest volcanic eruption the Earth had seen in 28 million years.
11:29It covered parts of Indonesia, India, and the Indian Ocean with a thick layer of volcanic debris, almost like a
11:356-inch blanket.
11:37The amount of rock it spewed out was like stacking nearly 3 million Empire State Buildings.
11:42The giant crater it left behind can still be seen from space.
11:46All the ash and gases shot up into the air and blocked some of the sunlight.
11:50It caused a volcanic winter that lasted about 6-10 years.
11:55Some scientists think this eruption might have even affected early humans.
11:59Around the time Toba erupted, the human population took a sharp dip, and there were far fewer people.
12:05Some say this is why all modern humans come from a small group of survivors.
12:09According to the Toba Catastrophe Theory, most early humans in Europe and Asia didn't survive the cold and harsh climate
12:16after the eruption.
12:17But a lucky group lived through all that in Africa.
12:20Not all scientists agree with this idea, and some archaeological and climate records show a different story.
12:28Another volcano that changed the world in a big way was Mount Tambora in 1815.
12:34The next year went down in history as the year without a summer.
12:38It was cold and rainy, and there was snow and frost even in the middle of summer, especially in Europe
12:44and North America.
12:45This happened because the volcano sent out a lot of sulfur dioxide into the sky, which spread all over the
12:51world and made the planet colder.
12:54When Tambora erupted, it caused huge tsunamis that smashed homes and took the lives of around 10,000 people.
13:01Afterward, about 80,000 more people passed away because of the consequences the eruption had caused in the world.
13:07The cold weather ruined crops, so food became really expensive.
13:11And because horses were the main way people traveled, the cost of oats that they ate went way up too.
13:18Some people even think this led to the invention of the bicycle in 1817 as a new way to get
13:23around.
13:24The eruption made the Earth colder for about three years.
13:28Now, even though the Tambora eruption was so powerful, Krakatoa, another volcano in Indonesia, stole the show when it erupted
13:36in 1883.
13:38It was just easier to spread information about it through telegrams and photos.
13:42Its final blast was the loudest recorded sound in history, and people could hear it on 10% of the
13:48entire Earth's surface.
13:50The eruption started a tsunami, with waves about half as tall as the Statue of Liberty.
13:56Now, if we only had 12 months to prepare for a supervolcano eruption, it would be really hard to store
14:03enough food and get ready.
14:04But don't panic just yet.
14:07Supervolcano eruptions are very rare, and the last one happened 26,500 years ago in New Zealand.
14:14Scientists think that a supereruption happens once every 100,000 years on average.
14:19But the sad part here is that the Earth doesn't follow a perfect timeline.
14:24There could be clusters of supereruptions with shorter gaps between them and then longer quiet periods.
14:29Since there have already been two supereruptions in the last 100,000 years, there's always a chance one could happen
14:37again sooner than we expect.
14:40Plus, although there are places like Yellowstone and Long Valley, where we expect volcanoes to erupt, there are less obvious
14:47possible hotspots.
14:49In Chile, there's a volcano called Laguna del Maule that has erupted in the past and left behind a huge
14:55crater.
14:56Over the last 20 years, the ground there has been swelling really fast, rising up to almost 1 foot a
15:02year.
15:03Some people are worried that this could be a sign of a big eruption coming.
15:07But scientists say there's not enough magma yet to cause a supereruption.
15:11In Bolivia, the Juturanku volcano is also acting up.
15:16It's part of a group of volcanoes that have caused supereruptions in the past.
15:20Since the 1960s, the ground around Juturanku has been lifting, but the last eruption was 250,000 years ago.
15:28Even though the magma might be rising, it's not enough to worry about just yet.
15:33The chances of a supereruption happening during our lifetime are 1 in 1,400, which is pretty low, so you
15:41don't need to worry too much.
15:43But just like someone wins the lottery every week with very small chances, a supereruption could happen sometime in the
15:50future.
15:50And when it does, we'll need to be prepared.
15:53If you think you're safe from violent tornadoes because you aren't living in the tornado alley, you could be dangerously
16:00wrong.
16:01It's shifting to the east.
16:02It looks like we're about to see fewer single tornado days and more days with multiple powerful tornadoes.
16:10And because they're shifting into more populated areas, they could take more lives and ruin more homes.
16:16There isn't enough time to build infrastructure to protect everyone from this fast-moving danger.
16:21So the least you can do to save yourself is learn as much as you can about it.
16:28About 1,200 tornadoes hit the U.S. every year.
16:32You gotta thank the unique geography that sets up the perfect conditions for it, especially in spring and summer.
16:38Winds from the Pacific drop moisture over the Rockies and become dry and cool as they move east.
16:45They collide with warm, humid airstreams from the Gulf of Mexico over the flat terrain.
16:50And that's how unstable air and wind shear, which are the perfect conditions for tornadoes, are born.
16:57Historically, tornadoes were most common in Tornado Alley.
17:01This term was first used in the 1950s by two meteorologists as the title for their research project to study
17:07extreme weather in Texas and Oklahoma.
17:11Northeastern Texas and south-central Oklahoma are precisely the areas we think of when we talk about Tornado Alley.
17:18But in the past 10 years or so, it has shifted eastward by up to 500 miles.
17:23Now, eastern Missouri, Arkansas, western Tennessee, Kentucky, northern Mississippi, and Alabama see more tornadoes.
17:31The storms of early 2023 are great proof that this trend is real.
17:36A violent tornado hit Rolling Fork, Mississippi, and another outbreak caused huge damage in the new Tornado Alley.
17:43Data from the past two years shows that large tornado outbreaks with multiple twisters from a single weather system are
17:49also moving eastward and becoming more frequent and intense.
17:55The Tornado Alley is shifting eastward mainly because of supercells, though strong thunderstorms with rotating updrafts create new tornadoes.
18:05Supercells form when warm, humid air near the ground interacts with cool, dry air higher up.
18:11You can say that we're living in the middle of a natural experiment.
18:15We see changes in the basic ingredients for severe storms.
18:19But we don't know how significant these changes are.
18:22Experts predict that supercell storms will become more frequent in the late winter and early spring and less common in
18:29the late summer and fall.
18:31The air in recent years is getting warmer and moister, and the interactions between air masses more and more common.
18:38Experts explain that the atmosphere is becoming more unstable, and the Gulf of Mexico sends more water vapor into the
18:45southeastern U.S.
18:46All these factors fuel the storms.
18:49Research also shows that the so-called dry line, which divides the wetter eastern U.S. from the drier western
18:56U.S., is shifting eastward, too.
18:59This line has traditionally fallen along the 100th meridian, but has moved about 140 miles east since the late 1800s.
19:07This shift can affect where storms form, as the dry line works as a boundary for convection, where warm air
19:13rises and cold air sinks, fueling storms.
19:18Milder winters we've seen recently also mean more opportunities for unstable air masses to interact and form supercells earlier in
19:26the year.
19:27It's tricky to predict how the situation will change and how dangerous it is, because we don't have that much
19:32data on how weathered patterns affect such short-lived events as tornadoes.
19:37The U.S. National Weather Service only began keeping tornado records in 1950, and they didn't catch many tornadoes in
19:44remote areas.
19:45Data shows that the number of days with tornadoes each year has decreased, but there's more tornado activity on those
19:52days when they do occur.
19:54The records also show that some years, tornadoes take the lives of up to 20 people across the U.S.,
20:01and in other years, they take over 100 lives.
20:04But now, there are more people living in the paths of tornadoes because the U.S. population has more than
20:10doubled since 1950.
20:12And the southeast, where tornado activity could go up, has way more residents now.
20:17Texas and Oklahoma are well prepared with tornado shelters, but areas in the southeast are less equipped.
20:25Plus, there are many mobile homes in the southeast which are vulnerable to windstorms.
20:30Tornadoes in this region often strike at night, and they are 2.5 times more likely to cause fatalities.
20:38We could possibly have more events like the 2008 Super Tuesday tornado outbreak.
20:44It hit the southern U.S. and lower Ohio Valley, and over just 15 hours, 87 tornadoes rushed through the
20:52area and caused massive trouble.
20:5457 people lost their lives across four states and 18 counties, and many others were injured.
21:01The tornadoes were fueled by strong low-pressure systems that brought record warmth.
21:05There were supercells and rotating winds that produced these violent tornadoes.
21:11Early on February 5th, a squall line developed from eastern Texas to Missouri and moved east.
21:18One of the most intense tornadoes traveled 122 miles over two hours.
21:23By the early morning of February 6th, the severe weather threat shifted to the eastern U.S.
21:29It caused wind damage as the cold moved out to the Atlantic, with snow and freezing rain from Iowa to
21:36Quebec.
21:37It ruined many homes and even swept some of them from their foundation, made mobile homes fly, blew many vehicles
21:43and tractor trailers off Interstate 40, and threw some cars on trees.
21:48There were wind gusts over 50 miles an hour from Arkansas to Indiana, hail the size of softballs, toppled trees,
21:56and power outages everywhere.
21:58Some areas were flooded because of heavy rains and melting snow.
22:02All this led to over a thousand flight cancellations at Chicago's O'Hare and disruptions at Toronto's airport.
22:09The data from scientists can help new areas of the U.S. prepare for more tornadoes coming their way.
22:15The people in authority will also need to improve community shelters and warning systems, and educate the locals on tornado
22:22safety.
22:23You can also get prepared by learning three basic rules.
22:27Get in, get down, and cover up.
22:30When you hear the warning for an upcoming tornado, get into the most interior room in your house and stay
22:36away from doors and windows.
22:37If you have a basement or an underground tornado shelter, hide there.
22:42If not, just be on the lowest floor possible.
22:45You can use whatever's at hand to protect yourself from debris.
22:49Clothing, pillows, blankets, a mattress, or a bulky table.
22:53Anything will do.
22:54There's a tip that says that the bathroom is the safest place to hide.
22:58It makes sense because those are mostly right in the center of homes.
23:02In March 2023, a man and his girlfriend in Rolling Fork, Mississippi, survived a tornado in their bathtub.
23:10It got thrown into the air but landed safely amid the wreckage of their mobile home.
23:15But there's actually nothing extra safe about being in a bathtub with a mattress.
23:20Closets and walk-in showers that are deep inside the building can also offer good protection.
23:25Don't use elevators.
23:27You can get trapped inside if there's a power outage.
23:29Stay in your shelter until you're sure the tornado threat is over.
23:33If you can, listen for updates from the National Weather Service, local radio, or TV.
23:39Multiple tornadoes can hit the same area, so it might not be safe to leave even after one has passed.
23:45When you do leave your shelter, be very careful.
23:48There could be flooding, debris, collapsing buildings, and blocked roads.
23:53Stay away from fallen power lines and puddles with wires in them, and don't use matches or lighters in case
23:59of gas leaks.
24:00Stay away from damaged buildings as they could collapse at any time.
24:04Being in a car during a tornado isn't much safer than being out in the open or in a parking
24:09lot.
24:10Many people get injured trying to drive away from storms.
24:14Tornadoes can produce hailstones the size of softballs and can easily smash a windshield.
24:19If you find yourself outside when a tornado hits, try to get inside any building you can find.
24:25If that's not possible, get as low as you can.
24:28Even a ditch or culvert can be safer than your vehicle.
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