Originally posted by KyrieEleison
reply to post by Rosinitiate
Hmm, you may be on to something there!
I try to look at it this way. If our little moon has the ability to influence our massive oceans on a seriously fundamental scale, then why would it
be such a stretch to learn the sun has an equal or greater influence on our planet....and not just from warmth.
I will try to be careful here but I want to reference a PPT doc I found from:
www.ucar.edu/educ_outreach/gew/presentations/plate_tectonics_1.ppt
Convection is a familiar phenomenon in planetary science
ocean circulation
atmospheric circulation
Happens in response to (examples follow)
heating by the sun (exterior to Earth)
radioactive elements inside (interior to Earth)
atmospheric absorbers (interior to the atmosphere)
Convection is (only one) way in which a planets cools off.
Taken from "Plate Tectonics Throughout the Solar System" C. Alexander 7/25/02
Basic weather patterns
Hadley circulation
summer vs. winter
Obvious influences on climate
topographic forcing
air-sea interactions such as El Nino
alteration of the chemical composition of the air
volcanic eruptions
human pollution
Less-Obvious influences on climate
water cycle
other cycles (CO2)
chemical absorbers in the atmosphere
biogeochemical cycling
What are some elements of climate?
Changes in (precession) a planets orbital characteristics
the distances of aphelion and perihelion, eccentricity of orbit
the tilt of the axis, & rotation rate
Magnetic Stripesacross the ocean floor
Hot lava comes out of the center of the ocean, at a mid-ocean ridge
Whatever the orientation of the Earth’s magnetic field, at the time this lava cools, is frozen into the cooling stone.
The magnetic orientations are either north (+) or south (-), whichever way the magnetic pole was pointed at the time.
Thus, as each new layer of material comes out of the spreading ridge and moves across the ocean floor towards the subducting trench, as time advances,
stripes of changing magnetic polarity can be measured across the entirety of the ocean floor.
So as referenced above this clearly shows a direct interaction from the sun and our tectonic plates.
edit on 29-5-2013 by Rosinitiate because:
(no reason given)