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Wasnt the earth mega hot when it was "created" and then all of a sudden it freezes over. Whats up with that?

2007-03-05 15:47:11 · 6 answers · asked by Anonymous in Science & Mathematics Earth Sciences & Geology

6 answers

It may have something to do with the eccentricity and the ellipse in the earths orbit around the sun. Currently we are supposed to be in a tightening ellipse orbit towards the sun, and thus warmer climate. During a ice age the trend of the ellipse is outward and creating colder temps on earth. The expansion and contraction of the ellipse is on a cycle and roughly coincides with ice ages and periods of warmth.

2007-03-05 16:14:51 · answer #1 · answered by Professor Kitty 6 · 0 0

Numerous ice ages have happened in the Earth's 4.55 billion year history. Sea level changes driven by water being retained in glaciers is likely the primary reason for the cyclothems that formed coal about 300 million years ago. There were several ice ages before then, and of course one that started a few million years ago and technically isn't over yet. We are likely just in an interglacial period, but human activities could easily have some totally unexpected results involving the climate.

The cause of ice ages is not well understood, but ice ages and carbon in the atmosphere are definitely closely related in some way. It's basically just a very slow oscillation of temperature that (so far) has reached an equilibrium eventually. What causes the oscillation or why it ends is unknown and has long been the subject of much research and debate among several fields of science (and more recently among politicians who usually don't really grasp any of it very well or believe it matters much beyond the next election.)

2007-03-05 16:08:54 · answer #2 · answered by Now and Then Comes a Thought 6 · 1 0

This episode of glaciation is a minor blip of the history of the Earth. A much more significant event occurred at the end of the Proterozoic Eon, 570 million years ago. At that time the Earth shifted from the Ice House to the Green House, and the onset of the Cambrian Explosion resulted as life flourished under warmer climate. Permian Glaciation, thought to be a result of the formation of the supercontinent, Pangaea, also resulted in much more glaciation than seen during the Pleistocene. Reasons for glaciation during the last 1.6 million years are not understood, and any attempt to state otherwise must be met with suspicion.

2007-03-05 18:14:58 · answer #3 · answered by Amphibolite 7 · 0 0

Be careful. There have been many ice ages in history. It wasn't just "mega hot" and then just cooled instantly.

The Earth goes though many natural warming and cooling trends. We are actually on a warming trend right now. This will be partially responsible for the warming to come years from now. Global warming will have a say too, but thats for another time.

The tilt of the Earth on its axis can do it too. The Earth naturally sways on its axis. It takes thousands of years to notice this subtle change, but roughly 40,000 years from now, the north star (Polaris) won't be the north star, Vega will, because the Earth will move on its axis, and the north axis will be pointing toward Vega. In relation to temp, the angle the earth faces in respect to the sun can cause global temp change, ie- Ice ages.

2007-03-05 16:07:00 · answer #4 · answered by sprocket9727 3 · 0 0

Nobody is entirely sure. In terms of the overall history of the planet, the ice ages were decidedly late for the train, having happened within the past few hundred thousand years of the earth's four billion year history. During that entire time, the earth's temperature has been fluctuating. The level of CO2 in the air may have something to do with it; that has been fluctuating also. It was four times as high during the dinosaur era as it is now.

2007-03-05 15:52:06 · answer #5 · answered by Anonymous · 0 0

The exact answers could be a subject of conrtroversy. But it could well be guessed with adequate reasoning and analysis that there could have been a coherent change in the composition of the atmosphere and sea where the physical and chemical properties of both the hydo sphere and atmosphere combined together give such a climate.May be changes in the sun too would have had an impact along with the magnetospheric factor.
But it is very very complex to explain that completely but still remain hypothetical even explained.

2007-03-05 16:09:22 · answer #6 · answered by anusen1970 2 · 0 0

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