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Climate change

Ancient to modern.

By Guy lynnPublished about a year ago 4 min read

we are living in a time of climate change, summers are getting hotter, and winters are getting, if not colder, then at least more-rainier, more snow fall, more windier with tornadoes and hurricanes. And it doesn’t help that we have more people crammed onto earth so that the impact of the severe weather is more noticeable and effects us more. With new technologies, weather news can be spread all over the world so the impact is felt everywhere, and everyone feels threatened.

Earth’s spin, tilt, and orbit affect the amount of solar energy received by any particular region of the globe, depending on latitude, time of day, and time of year. Small changes in the angle of Earth’s tilt and the shape of its orbit around the Sun cause changes in climate over a span of 10,000 to 100,000 years, and are not causing climate change today, the scientists and politians say.

Daily changes in light and temperature are caused by the rotation of the Earth, and seasonal changes are caused by the tilt of the Earth. As the Earth orbits the Sun, the Earth is pulled by the gravitational forces of the Sun, Moon, and large planets in the solar system, primarily Jupiter and Saturn. Over long periods of time, the gravitational pull of other members of our solar system slowly change Earth’s spin, tilt, and orbit. Over approximately 100,000 – 400,000 years, gravitational forces slowly change Earth’s orbit between more circular and elliptical shapes, as indicated by the blue and yellow dashed ovals in the figure at the top of my story show. Over 19,000 – 24,000 years, the direction of Earth’s tilt shifts (spins). Additionally, how much Earth’s axis is tilted towards or away from the Sun changes through time, over approximately 41,000 year cycles. Small changes in Earth’s spin, tilt, and orbit over these long periods of time can change the amount of sunlight received (and therefore absorbed and re-radiated) by different parts of the Earth. Over 10s to 100s of thousands of years, these small changes in the position of the Earth in relationship to the Sun can change the amount of solar radiation, also known as insolation, received by different parts of the Earth. In turn, changes in insolation over these long periods of time can change regional climates and the length and intensity of the seasons. The Earth’s spin, tilt, and orbit continue to change today, but do not explain the current rapid climate change.

Scientists explain the current modern climate change by human burning of fossil fuels which cause carbon dioxide to be released into the atmosphere and trap hot house gases and heat up ore atmosphere. I think it is a combination of all those, and more. We have had many volcanic eruptions around the globe with tons of carbon dioxide emissions being released into the atmosphere as well.

Besides the ice ages which the earth went through anciently, which were caused soley by the earth’s orbit changing, because humans were not burning fossil fuels like today, there have been several civilizations disrupted by climate change in more recent ancient history that have occurred that would not be just the change of the earths orbit around the sun as described, and which take hundreds of thousands of years, but by the earth’s tilt Which only take ten to forty thousand years to occur.There was the civilization of Sumer, Ur, and Mesopotamia in the Fertile Crescent, which had drought and lack of water. There was no excessive fossil fuel burning which contributed to those civilization’s ending. Besides the climate change directly, there was the indirect cause by resource warfare, as different tribe’s and empires came and took the resources from the empires mentioned for themselves.

There was the Roman Empire, in which climate change played a large part of why the empire collapsed in Italy and dispersed to other regions, as well as barbarian attacks and the army being diluted by mercenaries and therefore the softening of the military might of Rome.

There was the melting of the icecaps which caused the flooding of Europe in what is now modern day Denmark and the Netherlands, and Scotland and the land under the North Sea. That flooding and melting of the ice caps occurred just a few centuries ago, not hundreds of thousands of years ago, and humans weren’t burning huge amounts of fossil fuels then either. So again, it was the natural tilt and slight changing of the earth’s orbit that did it. It is what caused the barbarians to migrate south into Roman land, and led to their collapse.

so there are some examples of natural climate change by the Earth’s tilt and orbit change that wasn’t caused by human factors burning fossil fuels. And it is happening now, modernly, to our generation. Buying an electric car won’t stop climate change. Probably nothing will. All we can do is adapt, move away from coastlines that will flood, maybe live underground. But we can do it. We’ve done it before.

Climate

About the Creator

Guy lynn

born and raised in Southern Rhodesia, a British colony in Southern CentralAfrica.I lived in South Africa during the 1970’s, on the south coast,Natal .Emigrated to the U.S.A. In 1980, specifically The San Francisco Bay Area, California.

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