Human Tech Tree

Earth & Cosmos

Earth, Climate & Environment

55 points from the earliest roots to the research frontier: 36 researched, 4 current research, 8 unsolved and 7 that become possible once they are solved. State of knowledge: October 2026.

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Antiquity3000 BC – 500 AD

  • Earth measurement and maps~240 BCResearchedEratosthenes estimated Earth's circumference from shadow angles around 240 BC, and Greek and Roman scholars turned geometry into maps.

Middle Ages & Renaissance500 – 1700

  • The Earth as a Magnet (Gilbert)1600ResearchedWilliam Gilbert's 'De Magnete' (1600) shows by experiments with a magnetic globe that the Earth itself is a giant magnet.
  • Barometer1643ResearchedTorricelli's mercury tube (1643) shows that air has weight and lets pressure be measured, the key instrument of weather observation.
  • Stratigraphy (Steno)1669ResearchedSteno's law of superposition (1669): in undisturbed layers, deeper means older, the base for dating earth and sites.

Industrial Age1700 – 1900

  • Geology and deep time1788ResearchedJames Hutton (1788) showed that slow processes like erosion and uplift shaped the Earth over immense time, not a few thousand years.
  • First Geological Map (Smith)1815ResearchedWilliam Smith's 1815 map of England and Wales shows rock layers identified by their fossils across a whole country.
  • Ice ages discovered1837ResearchedLouis Agassiz argued in 1837 that ice sheets once covered Europe, revealing that Earth's climate has changed drastically.
  • Weather maps and services1854ResearchedTelegraph networks let observers draw weather maps and, from the 1850s, issue the first storm warnings and forecasts.
  • HMS Challenger expedition1872ResearchedThe Challenger voyage (1872-76) was the first global ocean survey, sounding the deep sea and finding life at every depth.
  • Greenhouse effect1896ResearchedFourier (1824), Tyndall (1859) and Arrhenius (1896) showed that gases like CO2 trap heat and that burning coal could warm the planet.

Machine Age1900 – 1945

  • Seismology: inside the Earth1906ResearchedEarthquake waves recorded worldwide revealed that Earth has a crust, mantle, liquid outer core and solid inner core.
  • Continental drift1912ResearchedAlfred Wegener proposed in 1912 that continents move, citing matching coastlines, fossils and rocks across oceans; no mechanism was known.
  • Echo Sounding & Sonar1913ResearchedAlexander Behm patents the echo sounder in 1913; ultrasonic sonar (Langevin, 1917) follows. Sound lets ships measure depth and find objects…
  • Radiosonde1929-1930ResearchedA balloon-borne radio transmitter reports pressure, temperature and humidity of the upper air (Bureau, 1929; Molchanov, 1930).
  • Milankovitch orbital cycles1941ResearchedMilutin Milanković calculated how Earth's orbit shifts sunlight over tens of thousands of years, pacing the ice ages (1941).

Atomic & Space Age1945 – 1990

  • Numerical weather prediction1950ResearchedWeather prediction became a physics calculation: in 1950 the ENIAC computer produced the first numerical forecast.
  • Radiometric age of the Earth1956ResearchedClair Patterson dated meteorite lead in 1956 and fixed the age of the Earth at about 4.55 billion years.
  • International Geophysical Year1957-1958ResearchedOver 18 months in 1957-58, scientists from 67 countries cooperate on Earth and space measurements; the first satellites launch.
  • Mapping the ocean floor1957ResearchedMarie Tharp and Bruce Heezen's sonar-based maps (1957) revealed a rift valley along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
  • Weather Radar1957ResearchedWartime radar operators noticed rain echoes in 1940-41; the US WSR-57 network (1957) and Doppler NEXRAD radars (1990s) track storms and rotation.
  • Keeling curve (CO2 record)1958ResearchedCharles Keeling's CO2 measurements at Mauna Loa, begun in 1958, showed concentrations rising year after year with the seasons.
  • Earth observation by satellite1960ResearchedTIROS-1 (1960) sent the first cloud pictures from orbit; Landsat (1972) and later satellites now monitor land, ice, oceans and air continuously.
  • Plate tectonics1960sResearchedIn the 1960s sea-floor spreading, magnetic stripes and earthquake patterns combined into one theory: the crust moves in rigid plates.
  • Seafloor Spreading1962-1963ResearchedHess (1962) proposes that new seafloor forms at mid-ocean ridges; Vine and Matthews (1963) find magnetic stripes that prove it.
  • Silent Spring1962ResearchedRachel Carson's 'Silent Spring' (1962) documents how pesticides such as DDT damage birds and ecosystems and starts the modern environmental movement.
  • Climate models1967ResearchedSyukuro Manabe's computer models (1967) calculated how doubled CO2 warms the atmosphere and became the basis of all climate projections.
  • El Niño-Southern Oscillation1969-1994ResearchedBjerknes linked El Niño to the Walker circulation (1969); TOGA (1985-94) put 70 buoys in the Pacific, and El Niño was first forecast successfully in…
  • Ice cores1987ResearchedIce drilled in Antarctica and Greenland holds air bubbles from the past 800,000 years and shows that CO2 and temperature moved together.
  • Ozone hole and Montreal Protocol1987ResearchedThe Antarctic ozone hole (found 1985) was traced to CFC gases, and the Montreal Protocol (1987) phased them out, the first global environmental fix.
  • IPCC climate assessments1988ResearchedCreated in 1988, the IPCC turns thousands of studies into consensus reports that underpin climate treaties.

Digital Age1990 – 2015

  • Satellite Altimetry & Sea Level1992ResearchedTOPEX/Poseidon (launched 10 August 1992) measured ocean height from orbit to a few centimetres and began the continuous global sea-level record.
  • UN Climate Convention (UNFCCC)1992ResearchedAt the Rio Earth Summit (1992) countries sign the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, the base for the Kyoto Protocol and the Paris Agreement.
  • Argo Ocean Float Network2000-2007ResearchedAutonomous floats drift, dive to 2,000 m and report temperature and salinity by satellite; by 2007 about 3,000 floats cover the world's ocean.
  • GRACE Gravity Satellites2002ResearchedThe twin GRACE satellites (2002) track tiny changes in their distance to measure shifts of mass: melting ice, falling groundwater, ocean mass.
  • Tsunami Warning Systems (DART)2004-2008ResearchedAfter the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami killed about 228,000 people, deep-ocean pressure sensors (DART) and a regional warning system were built.

Present2015 – Oct 2026

  • SWOT Wide-Swath Water Survey2022ResearchedNASA and CNES's SWOT satellite (December 2022) is the first to survey nearly all surface water, with ocean detail about ten times finer than earlier…
  • Direct air capture plants2024Current researchPlants that pull CO2 straight out of the air and bury it are running, but at hundreds to thousands of tonnes a year, not millions.
  • Paris 2015, 1.5 °C breached2024Current researchThe 2015 Paris Agreement set a 1.5 °C goal; 2024 was the first calendar year above it and 2023-2025 the first three-year average above it.
  • AI weather models2025Current researchNeural-network forecast models trained on decades of weather data now run operationally at ECMWF and beat physics-based models on many measures.
  • Coral reef tipping point2025Current researchThe Global Tipping Points Report 2025 (about 160 scientists) judged that warm-water coral reefs have passed their thermal tipping point, the first…

Research Frontier · Todayunsolved as of Oct 2026

  • Climate sensitivity rangeopenUnsolvedHow much the planet warms in the long run for a doubling of CO2 is still uncertain: IPCC says 2.5-4 °C.
  • Earthquake predictionopenUnsolvedNobody has ever predicted a major earthquake's time, place and size; only long-term probabilities and seconds-long early warnings work.
  • Forecasting volcanic eruptionsopenUnsolvedUnrest at a volcano is often visible, but when an eruption starts, how big it gets and what kind it is are still mostly unpredictable.
  • Fresh water for everyoneopenUnsolvedAbout 2.1 billion people lack safely managed drinking water, and groundwater, rivers and glaciers are under growing strain.
  • Gigatonne-scale CO2 removalopenUnsolvedClimate targets need billions of tonnes of CO2 removed from the air per year, but engineered removal is only about 2 million tonnes.
  • Halting mass extinctionopenUnsolvedSpecies are disappearing far faster than the natural rate; stopping it needs habitat protection at huge scale, not a single technology.
  • Predicting tipping pointsopenUnsolvedNobody can say reliably when ice sheets, ocean circulation or rainforest will tip; warning signs and models are not yet good enough.
  • Stopping ocean acidificationopenUnsolvedThe ocean has absorbed enough CO2 to cross a proposed safe limit for shell-forming life; only deep CO2 cuts stop it, and alkalinity addition is in…

If Solvedbecomes possible

  • Eruption Warnings Days Ahead2040s?If solvedObservatories issue warnings with a stated probability and expected size days to weeks before an eruption at monitored volcanoes.
  • Tipping-point early warning2040s?If solvedA monitoring system that tells decision-makers how close the AMOC, ice sheets or Amazon are to tipping, years in advance.
  • Safe water for every household2050s?If solvedEvery household has safe water on its premises, supplied by efficient desalination, reuse, protected groundwater and tight networks.
  • Ocean Chemistry Stabilised2060s?If solvedOcean pH stops falling and starts to recover as atmospheric CO2 declines, with monitoring that confirms it in every ocean basin.
  • Recovering biodiversity2060s?If solvedOnce extinction stops and the climate stabilises, damaged habitats and populations could slowly recover.
  • Stable climate, falling CO22060s?If solvedNet-zero emissions plus large CO2 removal would bring atmospheric CO2 down so that global temperatures stop rising and start to fall.
  • Earthquake warnings in advanceopenIf solvedReliable warnings days to weeks before a damaging quake would allow evacuation and preparation, not just seconds of alert.