Related papers: The Cambrian impact hypothesis
Using kappa Ceti as a proxy for the young Sun we show that not only was the young Sun much more effective in protecting the Earth environment from galactic cosmic rays than the present day Sun; it also had flare and corona mass ejection…
It is widely accepted that the Universe underwent a period of thermal equilibrium at very early times. One expects a residue of this primordial state to be imprinted on the large scale structure of space time. In this paper we study the…
Big Bang Nucleosynthesis (BBN) and the Cosmic Background Radiation (CBR) provide complementary probes of the early evolution of the Universe and of its particle content. Neutrinos play important roles in both cases, influencing the…
The continuous flux of Galactic cosmic rays that bombard Earth's atmosphere creates ionizing radiation that can damage the DNA of living organisms. While this radiation on Earth is relatively constant in the short term, large and long-scale…
It is expected that as the Sun travels through the interstellar medium (ISM), there will be different filtration of Galactic Cosmic Rays (GCR) that affect Earth. The effect of GCR on Earth's atmosphere and climate is still uncertain.…
This chapter is dedicated to the slow dynamics of the climate system, at time scales of one~thousand to one million years. We focus specifically on the phenomenon of ice ages that has characterised the slow evolution of climate over the…
Climate change has become a significant global concern due to its capacity to cause substantial disruption to daily life by increasing the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. Given the rising trend of human interventions in…
Orbital forcing plays a key role in pacing the glacial-interglacial cycles. However, the mechanistic linkages between the orbital parameters - eccentricity, obliquity, and precession - and global ice volume remain unclear. Here, we…
The climate and circulation of a terrestrial planet are governed by, among other things, the distance to its host star, its size, rotation rate, obliquity, atmospheric composition and gravity. Here we explore the effects of the last of…
By utilizing satellite-based estimations of the distribution of clouds, we have studied the Earth's large-scale cloudiness behavior according to latitude and surface types (ice, water, vegetation and desert). These empirical relationships…
During most of the Phanerozoic eon, which began about a half-billion years ago, there were few glacial intervals until the late Pliocene 2.75 million years ago. Beginning at that time, the Earth's climate entered a period of instability…
Improved knowledge of glacial-to-interglacial global temperature change implies that fast-feedback equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) is 1.2 +/- 0.3{\deg}C (2$\sigma$) per W/m$^2$. Consistent analysis of temperature over the full…
Geological evidence suggests liquid water near the Earth's surface as early as 4.4 billion years ago when the faint young Sun only radiated about 70% of its modern power output. At this point, the Earth should have been a global snowball if…
Intersection with the debris of a large (50-100 km) short-period comet during the Upper Palaeolithic provides a satisfactory explanation for the catastrophe of celestial origin which has been postulated to have occurred around 12900 BP, and…
The solution of energy-balance model of the Earth global climate and the EPICA Dome C and Vostok experimental data of the Earth surface palaeotemperature evolution over past 420 and 740 kyr are compared. In the framework of proposed…
We present in this work a unified, quantitative synthesis of analytical and numerical calculations of the effects that could be caused on Earth by a Gamma-Ray Burst (GRB), considering atmospheric and biological implications. The main…
The climate record preserved in polar glaciers, mountain glaciers, and widespread cave deposits shows repeated occurrence of abrupt global transitions between cold/dry stadial and warm/wet interstadial states during glacial periods. These…
The possibility of an increasing gravitational constant $G$ and its implication on the Earth's history are discussed. The model is consistent with geophysical and astronomical data. The number of days in early epochs predicted by the model…
Reconstructions of the paleoclimate indicate that ancient climatic fluctuations on Earth are often correlated with variations in its orbital elements. However, the chaos inherent in the solar system's orbital evolution prevents numerical…
The emergence of the James Webb Space Telescope and the development of other advanced observatories (e.g., ELTs, LIFE and HWO) marks a pivotal moment in the quest to characterize the atmospheres of Earth-like exoplanets. Motivated by these…