Earth Sciences 2240F/G Chapter Notes - Chapter 12: Equatorial Bulge, Ocean Current, Oxygen-18
13 Feb 2018
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Document Summary
Earth"s global climate is more favorable today compared to what it was in the past. You can plot the total geological time in 2 ways: expanded linear scales, logarithmic scales. Variation in one component results in a change to other components history. 3 major causes of climate change throughout: changes in plate tectonics, changes in earth"s orbit, changes in sun"s energy. Climatologists use the word forcing when referring to factors that cause climate changes, and they use the word response to refer to variation in climate produced by the forcing event. Tectonic processes change global climate i. e. the circulation of ocean currents depends greatly upon the location and arrangements of continents. At times, earth"s orbit it highly eccentric, and at others it"s almost circular: the amount of tilt of earth"s axis changes systematically from 21. 5 to 25. 5 degreed in a pattern that repeats every 41000 years. This process is called precession and has a cycle of ~26,000 years.
