Related papers: Influence of the Solar Luminosity on the Glaciatio…
Unexplained annual variations in nuclear decay rates have been reported in recent years by a number of groups. We show that data from these experiments exhibit not only variations in time related to Earth-Sun distance, but also…
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…
The short term variability of the Galactic cosmic ray flux (CRF) reaching Earth has been previously associated with variations in the global low altitude cloud cover. This CRF variability arises from changes in the solar wind strength.…
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…
As is well known, during the Last Glacial Maximum, about 20'000 years ago, the ice was asymmetrically distributed around the present North Pole. It reached the region of New York, while east Siberia remained ice free. Mammoths lived in…
I describe a climate model which corresponds directly to eclipse cycles. The theory is based upon a similarity between the 54 year triple saros eclipse period and the periodicity of drought. I argue that eclipse shadows are an indication of…
The long-term variations in the orbit of the Earth govern the insolation on its surface and hence its climate. The use of the astronomical signal, whose imprint has been recovered in the geological records, has revolutionized the…
Modeling globally averaged information on climate forcing from the land surface temperature data, the sea surface temperatures (SST) and the empirically determined relationship between the changes in SST and the turbulent diffusion of heat…
Using an idealised climate model incorporating seasonal forcing, we investigate the impact of rotation rate on the abundance of clouds on an Earth-like aquaplanet, and the resulting impacts upon albedo and seasonality. We show that the…
Observations of open star clusters in the solar neighborhood are used to calculate local supernova (SN) rates for the past 510 million years (Myr). Peaks in the SN rates match passages of the Sun through periods of locally increased cluster…
In granular systems, thermal cycling causes compaction, creep, penetration of dense objects, and ratcheting of grains against each other. On asteroid surfaces, thermal cycling is high amplitude and can happen billions of times in a few…
This article reviews atmospheric changes associated with 44 solar eclipses, beginning with the first quantitative results available, from 1834 (earlier qualitative, accounts also exist). Eclipse meteorology attracted relatively few…
The variability in the magnetic activity of the Sun is the main source of the observed changes in the plasma and electromagnetic environments within the heliosphere. The primary way in which solar activity affects the Earth's environment is…
Planet migration is the process by which a planet's orbital radius changes in time. The main agent for causing gas giant planet migration is the gravitational interaction of the young planet with the gaseous disk from which it forms. We…
The brightness of the Sun varies on all time scales on which it has been observed, and there is increasing evidence that it has an influence on climate. The amplitudes of such variations depend on the wavelength and possibly on the time…
From the Archean toward the Proterozoic, the Earth's atmosphere underwent a major shift from anoxic to oxic conditions, around 2.4 to 2.1 Gyr, known as the Great Oxidation Event (GOE). This rapid transition may be related to an atmospheric…
Comet disintegration proceeds both through sublimation and discrete splitting events. The cross-sectional area of material ejected by a comet may, within days, become many times greater than that of the Earth, making encounters with such…
The mean surface temperature on Earth and other planets with atmospheres is determined by the radiative balance between the non-reflected incoming solar radiation and the outgoing long-wave black-body radiation from the atmosphere. The…
The dynamical ellipticity of a planet expresses the departure of its mass distribution from spherical symmetry. It enters as a parameter in the description of a planet's precession and nutation, as well as other rotational normal modes. In…
Earth's climate can be understood as a dynamical system that changes due to external forcing and internal couplings. Essential climate variables, such as surface air temperature, describe this dynamics. Our current interglacial, the…