[Top] [All Lists]

Re: The Sun is a Variable Star

Subject: Re: The Sun is a Variable Star
Date: 4 Mar 2006 17:53:00 -0800
Newsgroups: sci.astro
The sun may have many variable cycles such as the 11 year cycle etc.
but the really long cycles that produce the major glacial periods are
very long and cold .  Within the last 1 million years their were just
four of them: the Nebraskan, Kansan, Illinoian and Wisconsin.  The
Earth is still recovering from the Wisconsin which reached its coldest
around 100,000 years ago and has been slowly recovering ever since
then.  The recovery is not a smooth warming however, it had many
aberations such as the little ice age that occured  around 1200AD.

There was around 20 million square miles of ice sheets covering the
planet at the height of the Wisconsin glacial period.  The sea level
was 200 to 300 feet lower at this time. England was connected to Europe
and Asia was connected to Alaska, etc. Ever since then the glaciars
have been melting and retreating and are still retreating at the
present time. The sea level may be 200 to 300 feet higher now and is
still rising.  At some point the warming trend should level off as we
enter into a long  warm interglacial period that will probably last
100,000 years or more. The abundant amount of greenhouse gases now
present in the atmosphere could exaserbate the global warming to a
certain extent and cause greater melting then would have normally

Don Hamilton

<Prev in Thread] Current Thread [Next in Thread>