- 3548 - CLIMATE CHANGE - the history. The Universe began to form 13,730,000,000 years ago. The Solar System began to take shape 4,700,000,000 years ago, 9 billion years later. Or, 4.7 BY, that is when the Earth formed and Comet Halley formed. Just 50 billion years after that the Moon formed, 4.52 BY.
--------------------- 3548 - CLIMATE CHANGE - the history
- 4.52 BY: Soon after the Earth formed there was a massive collision between Earth and another planet about the size of Mars. The impact flung out debris that orbited the Earth and eventually coalesced into the Moon. We know this because trips to the Moon found that the Moon was made up of the Earth’s crust.
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- 3.85 BY: A giant crater formed on the Moon from an asteroid impact, called “Mare Imbrium“.
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- 3.5 BY: Life existed on Earth, but you needed a microscope to see it. Life were microbes for the first billion years.
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- 3.0 BY: A giant canyon formed on Mars, known as “Valles Marineris“. Blue-green algae evolved in Earth’s oceans and began inserting oxygen into the Earth’s atmosphere.
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- 2.8 BY: There were massive floods on Mars creating the cannels, called “Ares Vallis“.
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- 2.2 BY: The Ice Age covers the entire Earth with ½ mile thick sheet of ice.
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- 2.0 BY: A massive asteroid strikes South Africa creating “Vredefort Crater” that is 180 miles across.
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- 1.5 BY: The Grand Canyon was formed and this is the age of its oldest rocks.
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- 1.2 BY: Multicellular life evolved on Earth fom those surviving microbes.
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- 1.0 BY: The largest volcano on Mars, “Olympus Mons“, began to build its craters. A giant asteroid strikes the Moon forming the “Copernicus Crater“.
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- 0.71 BY: Another Ice Age on Earth covers the planet in a sheet of ice.
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- 0.635 BY: Again , a 3rd Ice Age covers the planet.
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- 0.54 BY: The Cambrian Era sees a variety and complexity of life evolve on Earth.
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- 0.25 BY: Something causes a mass extinction on Earth and 75% of all land species are lost.
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- 0.23 BY: The dinosaurs rule Earth until a giant asteroid strikes and wipes them out 0.065 billion years ago.
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- 0.225 BY The continent “Pangea“, a single land mass, starts to break apart. As it does the continents begin to drift apart. The “Permian period” begins, then the “Triassic period” 200 million years ago, then the ‘Cretaceous period’ 65 million years ago, then the present day we have eight continents spread around the globe.
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- 0.200 BY: Saturn’s rings form from obliterated moons. The earliest mammals begin to evolve on Earth.
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- 0.109 BY: Another asteroid strikes the Moon creating the “Tycho Crater“.
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- 0.003 BY: Hominids make their first appearance on the African Plains.
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- 4.5 BY: When Earth first formed the molten heavy metals like iron, nickel, uranium, thorium and potassium sank to the center. These radioactive elements cook the interior to this day. The are responsible for volcanoes, plate tectonics, earthquakes, and the recycling of Earth’s curst.
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- 4.5 BY: The Moon was formed. When physicists do the math for the creation of the Moon they come up with the best model being a Mars size planet colliding at 22,400 miles per hour at a 45 degree angle. The Earth was also rotating in the opposite direction than it is today. This combination forms a Moon of Earth’s curst without digging up the iron at its core.
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- When we observe the impacts that occurred on the Moon imagine the Earth at 3.7 times its diameter and 100 times its mass and pull of gravity, how hard it would have been bombarded. Most of Earth’s bombardment has been erased by erosion and plate tectonics. Not so on the Moon, Mercury , and Mars.
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- “Greenhouse gases” were a good thing back then. Early in Earth’s history the Sun was only 70% its current intensity. Thus all the Ice Ages. To get the Earth’s temperature up to a modest 33C we needed the greenhouse gases to capture the heat and radiation in the atmosphere. That is what melted the ice and started the evolution of life 3.5 billion years ago. For the next billion years life only managed to evolve single-cell organisms, microbes, bacteria, and their distant cousins, viruses.
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- “Cyanobacteria“, which is blue-green algae, made a big difference on Earth. The algae obtained energy from the Sun through photosynthesis, breathing carbon dioxide and releasing oxygen into the atmosphere. At the time, tides on Earth were 1,000 feet because the Moon was orbiting much closer then.
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- When the “Ice Ages” occurred, and there were several of them in succession, the average temperature was -50C, even at the equator it was -20C. An Ice Age is positive feedback to the climate system. More ice, more reflection of the Sun’s radiation, less heat is absorbed, more ice is formed, and the cycle continues until the Earth is covered in ice. Volcanoes and plate tectonics were needed to reverse the cycles.
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- The land masses broke apart releasing internal heat and greenhouse gases to warm the Earth. The carbon was sub-ducted back into the mantle through plate tectonics which kept the atmosphere relatively free of carbon dioxide.
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- You have to admit life on Earth certainly had a turbulent past with it came climate change. Today we are worrying about a ½ degree rise in global temperature and the start of Global Warming ( See Review 908).
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- The problem really is the positive and negative feedbacks in the system that can start a runaway cycle until it is reversed. The past behavior is always the best prediction for future behavior. Unless you find that today is a lot more like tomorrow than it is yesterday.
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- We need physics and math to sort this stuff out. And, we need students who study this stuff and can help us forecast the future and tell us what to do in the present to best help the next generations. It ain’t easy.
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April 19, 2022 CLIMATE CHANGE - the history 909 3548
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--------------------- --- Tuesday, April 19, 2022 ---------------------------
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