dorsal/arxiv
View SchemaA possible explanation for Earth's climatic changes in the past few million years
| Authors | W. Woelfli, W. Baltensperger |
|---|---|
| Categories | |
| ArXiv ID | physics/9907033 |
| URL | https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/9907033 |
Abstract
The astronomical theory of Milankovitch relates the changes of Earth' past climate to variations in insolation caused by oscillations of the orbital parameters. However, this theory has problems to account for some major observed phenomena of the past few million years. Here, we present an alternative explanation for these phenomena. It is based on the idea that the solar system until quite recently contained an additional massive object of planetary size. This object, called Z, is assumed to have moved on a highly eccentric orbit bound to the sun. It influenced Earth's climate through a gas cloud of evaporated material. Calculations show that more than once during the last 3.2 Myr it even approached the Earth close enough to provoke a significant shift of the geographic position of the poles. The last of these shifts terminated Earth's Ice Age epoch about 11.5 kyr ago. The origin and fate of Z is also discussed.
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"abstract": "The astronomical theory of Milankovitch relates the changes of Earth\u0027 past\nclimate to variations in insolation caused by oscillations of the orbital\nparameters. However, this theory has problems to account for some major\nobserved phenomena of the past few million years. Here, we present an\nalternative explanation for these phenomena. It is based on the idea that the\nsolar system until quite recently contained an additional massive object of\nplanetary size. This object, called Z, is assumed to have moved on a highly\neccentric orbit bound to the sun. It influenced Earth\u0027s climate through a gas\ncloud of evaporated material. Calculations show that more than once during the\nlast 3.2 Myr it even approached the Earth close enough to provoke a significant\nshift of the geographic position of the poles. The last of these shifts\nterminated Earth\u0027s Ice Age epoch about 11.5 kyr ago. The origin and fate of Z\nis also discussed.",
"arxiv_id": "physics/9907033",
"authors": [
"W. Woelfli",
"W. Baltensperger"
],
"categories": [
"physics.ao-ph"
],
"title": "A possible explanation for Earth\u0027s climatic changes in the past few million years",
"url": "https://arxiv.org/abs/physics/9907033"
},
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