Long and Short-Term Changes in Climate

• what have scientists discovered about earth's climate?

  it goes through a variety of natural changes
• what are long-term changes due to?

  continental drift or variations in earth's orbit
• what are short-term changes due to?

  natural events or changes in air/ocean currents
• what is continental drift?

  the shifting of plate tectonics which cause climate differences
• what did milutin milancovitch calculate?

  that the earth's orbit changes in three ways
• THE WAYS EARTH'S ORBIT CHANGES

  • eccentricity: the shape becomes more elliptical over 100 000 years
  • tilt: the tilt changes from 22.1 to 24.5 degrees over 41 000 years
  • precession: earth slowly wobbles on its axis over 24 500 years (angle of tilt is same, direction changes)
• volcanic eruptions

  launch dust and sulfer dioxide which cools the earth
• air/ocean currents

  the ice from the last ice age messed with the thermohaline circulation when melted
• if the sun's radiation drops, the earth cools down