In short
CrowdScience imagines Earth stopping its rotation, then rotating in the opposite direction, and explains consequences for day/night, temperature, winds, rainfall, sea level, and Earth’s magnetic field.
Guests/backgrounds
Anand Jagatia (host). Jacob van Noon (astronomer, Keele University; explains why Earth won’t stop soon and models effects of a full stop). Amy Bonsor (Associate Professor of Astronomy, University of Cambridge; explains what “spin” is and why planets rotate, including prograde vs retrograde). João Basso (Brazilian meteorologist, University of Leipzig; discusses 2018 Max Planck modeling of reversed rotation and resulting climate shifts). Sabrina Lee (BBC meteorologist; gives a hypothetical Ecuador forecast). Listener Geronimo (8, from Ecuador; asks the question) and his father Fabian.
Key claims/examples
If Earth stopped spinning, one side would be dark for ~6 months (Ecuador dark half-year), causing extreme temperature swings, stronger winds, pole-to-equator air flow, ice melt, and sea level rise by “tens of meters.” If only Earth stopped but air/oceans kept moving, water would “flush all the land,” and air would strip trees/buildings. Without the magnetic field, solar outbursts could be deadly. For reversed rotation: Coriolis effect flips trade winds, shifting Atlantic moisture to Africa; Sahara becomes vegetated, while Amazon/Brazil/Argentina become desert. Monsoons shift toward Saudi Arabia; US storm impacts move; Western Europe colder, East Russia/China warmer; global woody vegetation increases (41.3 to 46.3 million km²). Hypothetical Ecuador forecast: max temps 1–2°C higher, inland light showers, coast drier, and through July drier-than-normal conditions with fewer El Niño events.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOListener's Question about Earth's Rotation
1:11 to 2:38
Exploring a listener's imaginative question about Earth's rotation.
“With the world having started to spin in the opposite direction, I'm here to give you an idea of what the weather might look like for the rest of the day.”
Understanding Earth's Spin Basics
2:38 to 4:10
Introduction to the concept of spin in space and planetary motions.
“What would happen if our planet started rotating on the other side?”
How and Why Planets Spin
4:10 to 10:28
An analysis of planetary spin and its connection to solar system formation.
“and we take finding the answers very seriously indeed.”
The Effects of Earth Stopping
10:28 to 13:30
Discussion on the hypothetical scenario of Earth stopping its rotation.
“What would happen if the Earth stopped spinning?”
How Orientation and Light Change
13:30 to 14:00
Explaining the implications of Earth's fixed orientation in space.
“People were unaware that Geronimo waved his magic wand, but then they get up.”
What If the Earth Stopped Spinning?
14:00 to 19:03
Exploration of the consequences if Earth stopped spinning, including climate impacts.
“And in one year's time, the Earth will have come around the sun.”
Impact of a Backwards-Spinning Earth
21:45 to 25:57
Discussion on how a reversed Earth rotation would alter global weather and ecosystems.
“mean that the rainfall that we normally associate with, you know, like rainforests and stuff, would kind of disappear and would end up getting dumped on places that are normally quite dry, like deserts?”
Hypothetical Weather Forecast
25:57 to 27:30
A fictional weather forecast depicting conditions in a reversed-spinning world.
“It would completely reshape our weather systems and the landscape of our world.”
Discussion on 'Emily in Paris'
29:01 to 29:33
Explore the impact of 'Emily in Paris' on Paris and its tourism.
“Delivery available on qualifying orders.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Geronimo:This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
0:30Fabian:at Whole Foods Market. I'm Glenn Washington, host of Snap Judgment, the award-winning storytelling podcast from KQED. Every week, Snap deals a new card, like the girl whose sister was a monkey, the man who lived in the woods for 30 years, or the woman who snuck her lover out of prison in a dog crate. Pick a card, any card. Snap Judgment from KQED. New episodes every Thursday, wherever you get your podcasts.
1:11Fabian:Welcome to the BBC CrowdScience's weather forecast. With the world having started to spin in the opposite direction, I'm here to give you an idea of what the weather might look like for the rest of the day.
1:25Geronimo:Hello and welcome to CrowdScience from the BBC World Service. I'm Anand Jagatia, and today we're imagining that something rather strange has happened to the world. It's because of a question from one of our listeners in South America. I am Jeronimo. I have eight years old, and I am a godarian.
1:53Fabian:He's interested in rocks. Kind of an archaeologist in the making. and in the universe. I mean, he likes the sun, the moon, the universe in general. That is what he's interested in. And the plants. Universe and plants.
2:06Geronimo:That's Geronimo with his dad, Fabian.
2:09Fabian:He's curious. Once we were reading about the rotation of the planets and he told me, imagine what we think can happen if our planet just stops. As we're in the equator, maybe we're going to fly away.
2:27Fabian:And then he said, and what if the planet starts rotating on the other side? He struck me with that question because I really didn't know what to say. I didn't know what to say. And that is our question. What would happen if our planet started rotating on the other side?
2:48Geronimo:So Geronimo asked you what would happen if the Earth stopped spinning round on its axis. And then what would happen if it started spinning in the opposite direction to the way it spins now? Could you ask him what he actually knows about the rotation of the Earth?
3:05Fabian:He knows that obviously the rotation gives us the days and the translations give us the seasons. Yes, through the year.
3:15Geronimo:Nice. And would you mind asking him as well what he thinks would happen if the Earth stopped spinning or if it started spinning in the other direction? Does he have any ideas?
3:30Geronimo:Okay.
3:32Fabian:He says that if the planet stops spinning, probably we are going to have eternal rains. And if the planet starts spinning on the other side, we probably have to eat at night, go to school at night and sleep in the morning.
3:53Geronimo:That is a really good answer.
3:55Fabian:And well, he's my boy, the one that makes me crazy questions sometimes. But yes, they are the best.
4:06Geronimo:Thanks, Geronimo, and thanks, Fabian, for getting in touch. Here on CrowdScience, there are no silly questions, and we take finding the answers very seriously indeed. Before we enter this strange new world where the planet stops revolving and then starts rotating backwards, let's begin with the basics. What is spin when it comes to space?
4:31Fabian:So spin is a ubiquitous process across the universe. It happens on many different scales. Stars spin, planets spin, big galaxies orbit each other, which essentially is spinning as well.
4:47Geronimo:Amy Bonsor is Associate Professor of Astronomy at the University of Cambridge. She looks at planets orbiting our sun and those orbiting suns light years away.
4:58Fabian:Our solar system is going around the sun. It's comprised of eight planets. So we've got four rocky interior planets. Earth being the one that we know best, but both Mars, Venus and Mercury are also rocky planets. And that means that the surface is solid. As we move out, we've got Jupiter and Saturn, which are these big gas giants. They don't have solid surfaces. You landed on Jupiter, you would just sink through it because it's just a big ball of swirling gas. And then further out, we've got the ice giants, Uranus and Neptune. So there it's so cold that that gas now is kind of more icy, and they're much smaller than Jupiter and Saturn.
5:36Fabian:And beyond that, we've got the Kuiper Belt, and that's full of the leftovers from planet formation and the things that become comets when they enter the inner solar system. So our solar system is orbiting one star as part of the Milky Way, so that's our galaxy. Our galaxy has hundreds of billions of stars. And we're just one of those. We think there are probably planets around lots of those other stars. All of those are kind of orbiting around a supermassive black hole in the centre of our galaxy. and our galaxy is part of a local cluster of galaxies that are all interacting together.
6:30Geronimo:So it's not just the Earth. Nearly everything in the universe appears to be spinning, from the smallest planets to the biggest galaxy clusters. And there are different levels of spin too. Our planet turns on its axis but also rotates around the Sun.
6:45Fabian:When we see the solar system planets, we see a big range of different spins out there. So Earth is spinning for 24 hours, whereas some of the other planets have much longer and much shorter spin periods. So Venus has a crazy rotation period compared to Earth. So it takes 243 days for Venus to rotate once. So the day on Venus is really, really long. Whereas for some of the other planets, it's much shorter. So Jupiter and Saturn both have on the order of 10-hour rotation periods.
7:13Geronimo:Jupiter rotates incredibly quickly for such a huge planet. It's actually over 300 times the mass of Earth, and yet it completes a rotation more than twice as fast. If you were to stand on the surface of Jupiter, you'd be travelling at 40 ,000 kilometres an hour, 28 times faster than the speed you're currently moving right now. But if suns, planets, solar systems and galaxies are all spinning, the question is, why?
7:41Fabian:This spin is something really exciting because we don't fully understand where it comes from. Planets form out of the kind of collapse of these big clouds of gas. And there's some kind of residual spin or residual angular momentum in that cloud of gas. And it collapses down to make a disk. If you imagine you've got material that's going to collapse down gravitationally, but it's all going around the star, and that's what kind of leads to the planets on their orbits.
8:05Geronimo:So spin is born from the formation of solar systems. As clouds of gas cluster together and condense due to gravity, they form big disks that, for some reason, start to spin. Most of the material ends up in the middle, forming the star, and everything else goes around it. Eventually, some of this orbiting material starts to form planets.
8:28Fabian:There are several models that kind of tell you how planets form. One of them is called pebble accretion, so they keep having lots and lots of pebbles come and form the end of the planet. The other one involves lots of big collisions, massive rocky things like moon-sized things that collide together.
8:42Geronimo:As this rocky material travelling around the sun condenses into planets, it contracts into a more compact size, and it's this which leads to planetary spin.
8:52Fabian:The outer bit is going to be going around faster than the inner part of that planet. So when they come together, that leads to them turning. It's rather like being on a roundabout.
9:01Geronimo:Think of an ice skater spinning on the ice. If they tuck in their arms and legs, they spin faster. This is due to something known as the conservation of angular momentum. If they stick their arms out, their hands have to travel a greater distance to perform a complete rotation, whereas tucked in, they travel a shorter distance. The total energy of the system, however, has to be conserved, meaning that they move at a faster speed. The same is true for planets. As the gas and dust condenses, it pulls its metaphorical arms and legs in, tucking into a ball, causing it to spin faster. This is also the reason most planets in a solar system spin on their axes in the same direction as the planets themselves orbit the sun.
9:48Geronimo:But that isn't the case for all of them.
9:50Fabian:We'd expect them to spin in what we call prograde rotation. So that's the way the Earth spins around. In exoplanets, we're just kind of on the cusp of being able to measure the rotation of some of these planets. And some of those do rotate backwards, in retrograde rotation. So that can only happen if you've had a dramatic event late in planet formation, where two things hit into each other, and that changed the way that one of those bodies was spinning, and left the other one spinning faster in the prograde, the same direction as Earth, while the other one then spins backwards.
10:24Geronimo:That's the basics of how and why planets spin. I think now we can tackle Geronimo's first question. What would happen if the Earth stopped spinning? Hi, Jessica. Lovely to meet you. I love your shirt. Perfect. Yeah. To find out, I've travelled to an observatory at Keele University in the UK.
10:46Fabian:Typically has a control room and a telescope upstairs.
10:53Geronimo:Where I'm meeting someone who thinks they can give us an answer.
10:57Fabian:Yeah, I'm Jacob van Noon. I'm an astronomer. I work at Keele University and we are now in the Keele Observatory, which is on the university campus. We like to show the public what's up there in the sky.
11:07Geronimo:So the reason why we're here and we're talking to you is because we had a question from some listeners in Ecuador who wanted to know what would happen if the Earth stopped spinning.
11:16Fabian:Yeah, I mean, it's an excellent question. This is the kind of questions that we want scientists to ask, right? So if I can take you perhaps to the Earth as it is.
11:25Geronimo:OK, you've got a beach ball.
11:27Fabian:And the Earth spins in a certain way.
11:31Geronimo:So you're spinning the Earth a bit like a kind of basketball. Yeah, I'm spinning it. Yes, yes.
Read the full transcript
11:35Fabian:I'm not a pro basketball player, so I can't really do that. That's pretty good. But yes, that's the way it goes.
11:40Geronimo:You're tall as well, so I think you could...
11:42Fabian:Yes, yes. That's where it stops. The earth spins also around the sun.
11:48Geronimo:OK, so this is now you've got a big yellow exercise ball.
11:52Fabian:Yes, a yoga ball. It's my favourite prop. I take it anywhere I can, really. It just fits in the car on the passenger seat with a seatbelt on. now the sun also spins in the same sense same direction and the earth goes around the sun also again in the same sense same direction the earth is slowing down it was spinning faster in the past now that slowing down is very very very slow indeed and so it won't make much of a difference over the next hundreds of millions of years really it's not going to stop spinning anytime soon so if something massive is spinning, it needs some really strong force for some time to make it slow down.
12:38Fabian:And this is why the Earth is still spinning, even after all those four and a half billion years.
12:43Geronimo:So the Earth's spin is slowing down, but very gradually. It would take longer than the life expectancy of the whole solar system for it to stop entirely. The reason for this slowdown is to do with the gravitational pull of the Moon and the effect of the tides on the movement of the Earth. If you want to know more about this, we explored it in a previous CrowdScience episode called How Did the Moon Affect the Dinosaurs? Download that wherever you get your BBC podcasts. But back to this week's question. It sounds like the Earth isn't going to stop by itself anytime soon. But what if listener Geronimo got involved?
13:19Geronimo:If Geronimo got to do his experiment and he could wave a magic wand and suddenly everybody on Earth woke up and the Earth had stopped spinning, what would happen?
13:29Fabian:Yeah, so let's assume the whole Earth with everything on it and around it stopped spinning.
13:39Fabian:People were unaware that Geronimo waved his magic wand, but then they get up.
13:46Fabian:And they might have expected it to be light by the time they get up, and it's not, so they would be a little bit confused. Why is it dark? they look out maybe it's a beautiful starry sky they would see a familiar constellation maybe Orion they look at their watch and say like well it is time to go no to school or to go to work so better get going the whole day would pass and they look at the clock say well school's out my job's done I go home still dark Orion up there again and this happens over and over again for months and then some light in the west that's not normally when you see daybreak and then it dawns on these people that the earth has stopped spinning so could you just explain
14:35Geronimo:how that would happen with your yoga ball and your beach ball so the orientation of the earth
14:41Fabian:in space is fixed now except that the earth is moving around the sun as it moves around the sun it will always look in the same direction out in space, but the sun would appear to move through the sky. And in one year's time, the Earth will have come around the sun. So half of that year, it will be up in the sky. Half of the year will be down below the horizon.
15:09Geronimo:Ecuador is here. And then opposite Ecuador, we've got like, what's that, Indonesia? You know, for half of the world, it would be dark for basically six months. and for the other half of the world it would be very very light and hot for six months wouldn't the two halves of the earth kind of one would become boiling hot and one would become freezing
15:28Fabian:cold yeah so if you're lucky to be in the day when this happens then probably the changes will be more gradual during the night will probably be more devastating more quickly of course because the sunlit part will keep warming up for longer it will get warmer and so the the night part will get cooler because it has longer to cool down even more.
15:51Geronimo:The big differences in temperature on opposite sides of the Earth would create very strong winds. On the warm side, the air heats and rises upwards. Cool air, which is denser, rushes in to fill the gap, pushing more warm air up that condenses to form clouds and rain, creating a cycle of turbulent weather. And that's not all.
16:13Fabian:There will also be air flowing from the poles to the equator and vice versa. And especially the warm air near the equator will go to the poles and melt the ice there. If that melts, it will add to the seas and oceans and the sea levels will rise by tens of meters. Now, if Geronimo managed to stop the Earth itself from spinning, but the water and the air would still move as they did before, This is doomsday because the water will just flush all the land ahead of it, leave dry land behind it. And the air would move around at a speed that's twice that of a normal airliner and just rip out all the trees and knock down buildings and just strip the whole earth.
17:02Fabian:So this makes a good movie.
17:04Geronimo:It's like suddenly slamming on the brakes when you're driving in the car. Whilst the car might stop, the passengers, and the coffee they're holding, will be thrown forward. The same thing would happen if Geronimo were to hit the planetary brakes without thinking about the oceans. They would keep moving. We've heard how light, temperature and weather would all be affected if the Earth stopped spinning. But there's something else we're missing.
17:28Fabian:Yeah, so the Earth also generates some magnetic fields. And that's because the core, the central bit of the Earth, is partly molten. and that spins too. And when that spins, it generates, creates a magnetic field, a magnet. And this magnetic field protects us against harmful radiation from the sun.
17:47Geronimo:So if we lost our magnetic field, then all of these harmful particles from the sun would just zoom straight through the Earth's atmosphere?
17:56Fabian:Exactly, yeah. So the next solar outburst pointing in our direction could kill lots of individuals. And over time, now that can be very devastating too, to deal with.
18:07Geronimo:So given all of this stuff then that's going to happen on Earth, you said it would make a good movie. How long is this movie set over? Is it like within a week, like everything on Earth has collapsed?
18:19Fabian:So if Geronimo's wants would also stop the sea and the air from spinning, then it is a relatively slow process and the movie can go on in movie time for days and weeks. If, however, Geronimo stops the Earth itself, but the sea and the air is allowed to keep moving, this will be a very quick and very short movie. We'll all be gone. Maybe if some people had access to a rocket, they could leave the Earth just in time and witness what's happening to the Earth. So that could be a good movie that might last another couple of days. And then whatever happens to these people in that spaceship.
19:03Geronimo:so that's what would happen if the earth stopped spinning but what about if it started rotating the other way that's what we'll be looking at next prep for a busy week with whole
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20:16Geronimo:You're listening to CrowdScience from the BBC World Service. I'm Anand Jagatia and this week we're imagining a very different world, one which rotates from east to west. And here to paint a picture of what that world would be like is João Basso.
20:32Fabian:Well, from the big picture, you wouldn't note too much differences in the positions of the continents. They would be probably in the same place.
20:43Geronimo:João is a Brazilian meteorologist from the University of Leipzig. When we called him up, he told us about a paper from 2018 by scientists at the Max Planck Institute of Meteorology, who modelled what would happen if the planet spanned backwards. And as João explains, their findings were pretty remarkable.
21:03Fabian:Since the weather is affected mostly by the winds, and the winds are affected also because of the rotation of the Earth, then it would also affect the weather patterns.
21:17Geronimo:That's not a trivial thing, is it? That's going to potentially have some quite big knock-on effects.
21:22Fabian:Yes, of course. Some areas that are dry would become wetter, and some areas that are wetter would become drier. For example, the Sahara Desert, it would be vegetated. But for the Amazon, Brazil and Argentina would become a desert if the Earth would spin in the opposite direction.
21:44Geronimo:That's fascinating. So why would the fact that the Earth is spinning in the other way mean that the rainfall that we normally associate with, you know, like rainforests and stuff, would kind of disappear and would end up getting dumped on places that are normally quite dry, like deserts?
21:59Fabian:Well, basically, we have one pattern that brings a lot of moist from the equator to South America, which are the trade winds. and the trade winds are caused by the Coriolis effect.
22:15Geronimo:Could you explain what causes the Coriolis effect?
22:19Fabian:Let's imagine that you are in the North Pole and you throw a ball to the equator line but the Earth is not spinning. You would assume that this ball would follow a straight line but since we have the Earth spinning from the west to the east the viewer who threw the ball from the pole to the equator would see the ball changing its trajectory. This is what happens with the wind in the equator.
22:47Geronimo:So basically what you're saying is that if you imagine that like air is sort of moving from the poles to the equator, because the Earth is also spinning, that air is kind of getting dragged in the direction that the Earth is spinning, right, as well?
23:00Fabian:Exactly. They blow from the east to the west and they would change the blowing from the west to the east, transporting all the Atlantic moisture. Instead of blowing to South America, they would transport the moisture to Africa.
23:16Geronimo:So the main hot desert in our world, excluding the Arctic and Antarctic, which are cold deserts, would no longer be found in Africa. Instead, it would form in Central South America. And that's only the beginning. Joao says that much of the world would change just as dramatically.
23:34Fabian:For example, if we think about the monsoon systems in India, what is the monsoon system? The monsoon system is a big, large-scale pattern that forms because of the difference between the surface of the ocean temperature and the surface of the inland temperatures. This pattern would be dislocated to the west and would be centred in Saudi Arabia.
24:02Geronimo:So Saudi Arabia would no longer be arid and hot, but full of rain, becoming vegetated with large forests. And João says the United States would change too.
24:13Fabian:The storms in the US, they would not be affecting the East US anymore.
24:18Geronimo:Western Europe would also become much colder.
24:22Fabian:And while the East Russia and China would become a lot warmer than it is now.
24:30Geronimo:Is the world going to be a drier place and have less greenery on it?
24:35Fabian:Actually, the world would be greener. The area with woody vegetation would be rising from 41.3 million kilometres squared to 46.3 million kilometres squared globally. And that's a lot.
24:53Geronimo:Yeah. So, I mean, given that Geronimo and Fabian are from not far from Brazil, in Ecuador, What would countries in that part of South America start to look like if there was this change?
25:04Fabian:The temperature would increase in Ecuador just because we would have lower cloud cover. The trade winds would not be blowing from the Atlantic to South America. It would be blowing in the opposite direction. So since the wind would be going in the opposite direction, we would have lower cloudiness in these areas. And clouds are very important to keep the temperature from rising too much. For example, when you are in an area where you have cloud cover, cloud will absorb the radiation and will keep it from arriving in the surface. And then the temperatures in the desert are higher because you have lower cloud cover.
25:46Fabian:And cloud cover is very important to keep the temperature from rising that much.
25:51Geronimo:So, Geronimo and Fabian, changing the rotation of the Earth would have much bigger consequences than flipping our day-night cycle and having to go to school in the dark. It would completely reshape our weather systems and the landscape of our world. Where you live, in Ecuador, things would look very different. With the winds changing due to the rotation of the Earth, we'd expect less cloud cover, less rainfall, and more dramatic swings in temperature from day to night. So what might a typical weather forecast look like? Well, now for the weather where you are in this weird new reality, here's BBC meteorologist Sabrina Lee with your forecast.
26:36Fabian:Hello there, I'm Sabrina Lee and welcome to the BBC CrowdSciences weather forecast. With the world having started to spin in the opposite direction, I'm here to give you, Fabian and Geronimo, an idea of what the weather might look like for the rest of the day. The general trend across Ecuador will see maximum temperatures possibly 1 to 2 degrees Celsius higher than what you might be used to. Scattered light showers expected inland with some daytime heating. Meanwhile, along the coast, you can expect drier conditions, including Fremanta and La Libertad. Now looking at the bigger picture, through the rest of July, the trend suggests drier than normal conditions.
27:18Fabian:Distinct El Nino events will become less likely. This could signal decreased rainfall, which lowers the probability of flooding. That's all from me, Sabrina. Back to you, Anand.
27:30Geronimo:Thanks, Sabrina, for creating that hypothetical weather forecast for us. And thanks to Geronimo and Fabian for getting in touch with your question.
27:41Geronimo:Fortunately, there's no need for alarm. Our planet continues to spin at the same speed and rotate in the same direction. Unfortunately, time also moves in the same direction, ever onward. Which means it's over to you for the credits.
27:56Fabian:That's all for this episode of CrowdScience from the BBC World Service.
28:00Geronimo:The question was from me, Jeronimo.
28:04Fabian:And me, Jeronimo's father, Fabian. The presenter was Anand Yegatia and the producer was Harrison Lewis The presenter was Anand Yegatia
28:17Geronimo:and the producer was Harrison Lewis
28:21Fabian:If you have a question, you can do what we did Write to crowdscience at bbc.co.uk Thanks for listening Bye
29:00Fabian:Store for details. Delivery available on qualifying orders. Is the hit Netflix show Emily in Paris just harmless, escapist TV? Or is Emily ruining Paris? I'm Asma Khalid, and I host the Global Story podcast from the BBC. The president of France has described the show as super positive for his country. Soft power through cinema.
29:25Geronimo:But is TV tourism good for a city? For more, listen to The Global Story on BBC.com or wherever you get your podcasts.
From the publisher
Your whole life is governed by spin. The rotation of our planet tells you when to wake up, and Earth’s orbit around the Sun is the reason why some of us dig out a jumper for half the year and a t-shirt for the rest. But what if that all changed? That’s exactly what 8-year-old Geronimo in Ecuador wants to know. He and his dad, Fabian, have got themselves dizzy trying to figure out what would happen if the Earth stopped spinning, or better yet, started spinning in the opposite direction. Would everyone fly off into space? Would school be at night? Eager for answers, they decided to ask CrowdScience.
Presenter Anand Jagatia embarks on an interstellar journey, blasting off with the celestial origins of spin itself. Astronomer Amy Bonsor from the University of Cambridge in the UK explains how Earth’s rotation began, with collapsing clouds of gas, planetary pile-ups and crushing gravitational force.
At Keele Observatory, things get apocalyptic. Anand meets astronomer Jacco van Loon, who explains what would happen if Geronimo somehow waved a magic wand and brought Earth’s rotation to a halt. With months of unbroken daylight or darkness, devastating storms and even the loss of the Earth’s magnetic shield, it’s like the script of a disaster movie.
Wave that magic wand again and we imagine a world where the Earth not only stops... but starts spinning the other way. Meteorologist Joao Basso from the University of Leipzig in Germany walks us through a mind-bending 2018 study that tells us the surprising things that would happen to the global climate.
Presenter: Anand Jagatia Producer: Harrison Lewis Series Producer: Ben Motley