We continue the topic of climate (see the beginning in the article "Climate: Why is there a war for Antarctica?"). In this article, we'll start looking at the physics of climate.
Periodic climate change with alternating glacial and interglacial epochs is the main feature of the Quaternary period, which began 1.6 million years ago and continues to the present.
Researchers are working very hard on this problem, and 100-, 44-, 23- and 19-thousand-year climatic cycles are noted everywhere. These cycles are large, and scientists associate their appearance with the oscillations of the Earth, as well as with its position in the solar orbit.
We will talk about the Earth's vibrations just below. Let us recall how the Earth ended up in solar orbit. At the very beginning of the 16th century, a BURNER [1] appeared under an uncomplicated hastily invented name - "KOPERNIK". By 1530, he completed work on his work, entitled in Latin "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium".
A literal translation with a cosmic bias is as follows - "Opposition of orbital movements" [2]. In it, Copernicus was the first to assert that the Sun does not revolve around the stationary Earth, but on the contrary - the Earth revolves around the stationary Sun. This was a revolution - a revolution in the consciousness of all mankind.
Copernicus began working on his concept in 1503-1512, and published his work only before his death. Then, in 1539, his most REETY pupil with the equally hastily concocted name "RETIK" published a clear account of the new - the heliocentric system.
This is all, let's say, generally accepted. But the most accurate translation of the title of the specified work of Copernicus, reflecting the essence of his concept, does not concern celestial bodies at all, to which there was no interest in the Middle Ages. "De Revolutionibus Orbium Coelestium" should be translated from Latin as "The Earth's Climate Cycle":
- Revolutionibus - rollback; "Cycle";
- Orbium - "circle, circle"; "Disk, circle"; "Throwing disc"; "Weighing pan"; Round mirror; "Circular movement, turnover, circulation"; “Heavenly vault, sky”; "Coup, change"; rhetorician., "rounding, period"; "Earthly circle, earth, world";
- Coelestium - "heavenly"; caelum - "heavenly height, heavenly vault, sky"; “Air, atmosphere; climate"; "Inner side of the vault".
Copernicus' work suggests that there is a connection between the Sun and the Earth that affects the climate. From today's perspective, this relationship is explained by the movement of the Earth around the Sun and orbital processes. We are accustomed to this explanation because we are accustomed to thinking that the Earth revolves around the Sun, moving in space in an orbit.
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But in Copernicus's time, the situation was radically different. People have gotten used to thinking that the Earth is flat. The Earth itself was called Space, and not at all the space that we today designate with this word: the world - Old Russian, Old Slav. "Mir", "κόσμος" (both that and others in Ostrom., Sup.).
In this regard, the mutual movement of the Earth and the Sun was perceived to exist not in open space, but on the Earth itself, more precisely, centered on the Earth. And the "celestial bodies" themselves were perceived not as spherical space objects, but differently. The sun did not have a clear interpretation. The earth was considered FLAT.
In such a worldview system, it was absolutely not important what and around what revolves. The main thing here was the identification of the ROTATION itself. Which is what Copernicus did. He first showed that the Sun changes its position relative to the Earth, and this leads to climate changes on Earth. This is not about changing the seasons. We are talking about much more important processes - about the change of glaciers and warming.
The modern theory of glaciation is deeply doubtful, and its explanation of the position of the Earth's "planet" relative to the "star" named the Sun requires a search for evidence. Nevertheless, we will very briefly consider the generally accepted version of glaciations and comment on it.
The earliest epoch of the Quaternary period is the Pleistocene. It began 1.6 million years ago and ended 10 thousand years ago. In the Eopleistocene (the first period of the Pleistocene), there were two glaciations. The first is 1.5 - 1.2 million years ago, the second - 0.9 - 0.8 million years ago. These glaciations are noted only in North America (Nebrasian glaciation) and Western Europe (Donau and Günz glaciations). During this period, the "Absheron" rise in the level of the Caspian Sea took place, the level rose by almost 100 meters.
Data on glaciation and on the rise in the level of the Caspian Sea contradict each other. If we adhere to the spherical model of the Earth, then during the glaciation in Antarctica and Greenland, ice caps remain and even grow, and new glaciers that have formed in Europe and North America are additionally added to them.
These glaciers collect and bind water, and this process occurs in proportion to the area (about twice). As a result, the level of the world's oceans falls by 70 - 100 meters. It does not rise, but falls. That is why, knowing about such a connection, modern climatologists, speaking of global warming, always add: there will be a rise in the world's waters.
In the Middle Pleistocene, the Dnieper glaciation took place (400 - 130 thousand years ago) and against its background there was again an increase in the level of the Caspian Sea - "early Khazar", by 40 - 50 meters.
During the Valdai glaciation (70 - 10 thousand years ago) the climate was much colder than the present one (between 55 and 24 thousand years ago). This corresponds to a natural "Attel" decrease in the level of the Caspian Sea - by 100 - 120 meters. But then the sea level rose again - "early Khvalyn", by about 200 m, that is, 80 m higher from the initial mark.
By the beginning of the Holocene (10 thousand years ago) the level of the Caspian Sea fell again by 50 meters, and 8 thousand years ago it rose again by 70 meters. Similar fluctuations in the surface of the water took place in the Baltic Sea and the Arctic Ocean. The total fluctuation in the level of the world ocean between the epochs of glaciation and melting of ice was 80 - 100 meters.
Modern calculations show that such a fluctuation corresponds to the volume of water contained in all the glaciers of the planet today. That is, if today all the glaciers melt, the water level will rise by 70-100 meters. These are generally accepted values.
However, during these glaciations, the glaciers did not completely melt, therefore, they only somehow changed their area of occurrence. With a spherical model of the Earth, this could occur at the expense of the territories of Europe and North America, as well as mountainous regions of other regions. Such a relationship can be seen from the data on glaciations and interglacials.
But the opposite phase looks strange - when the water rises against the background of glaciation. And this makes us look for other models of glaciations, including those tied to a different view of the Earth's shape - not spherical.
Such a scientific picture has developed in deep time layers - periods of glaciation are measured in millennia. This is a familiar field for research, because it belongs to a safe (very ancient) period and does not affect the interests of living people in any way.
Meanwhile, over the past 2000 years, much more rapid climate changes have been distinguished:
- 0 - 400 BC - Roman climatic optimum;
- 400 - 1000 BC - climatic pessimum of the early Middle Ages;
- 1000 - 1300 - medieval climatic optimum;
- 1300 - 1850 - the small ice age;
- 1850 - present - "global warming".
With this approach, the frequency of climatic changes is reduced to a value of the duration of the period of about 300 years. That is, global warming and cooling in antiquity is one side of the climate medal, and the periodicity of 300 years is another, which affects humanity with its alternating cold and warm phases.
The term "PERIOD" is used for climate change. It should be clarified that the climatic understanding of this term differs from the physical one. And this must be given the necessary explanations.
The word "period" is derived from ancient Greek. περίοδος - "circle, detour". Although this word has Russian roots - from "transition". A period is a period (of time or other value) defined by the mark of the beginning of the period and the mark of the end of the period.
That is, the period is the position of a certain process between two marks. Therefore, in climatology they say that "periods of glacial periods are followed by periods of warming." Although, from the point of view of mathematics, it would be more correct to include both glaciation and interglacials in one period, because in physics and astronomy the period of oscillation is the time between two successive passages of a body through the same position in the same direction.
But in history, archeology and paleontology, a period is a period of time allocated in the past associated with certain events or possessing certain characteristic features. In this case, the system does not return to the "one and the same" position, but develops in a certain way. Moreover, the periods in this understanding do not coincide in their characteristics and differ greatly in their duration. For example, geological periods.
In this work, the term "period" is used in its last meaning, that is, a period is a long time of existence of the same climate variant (as, for example, the long existence of the same geological period). One climatic period is replaced by another climatic period, and the system in this case does not complete a cycle and does not return from the original "one and the same" state.
Terminologically, this is reflected in word combinations such as: "cooling period", "warming period", etc. These explanations are necessary in order for the reader to understand from the text that, speaking about the period, the author means precisely the change in climatic characteristics, and not at all the rotation of the system by 180 degrees.
And here is one more, perhaps, the main periodical concept for studying climate. This concept is a period of precession, or simply - precession. Let's give a traditional definition: precession is the movement of the Earth's axis of rotation along the surface of an imaginary cone, which takes 25,920 years. It is believed that the precession is caused by the attraction of the Earth from the Sun.
Figure: Schematic representation of the Earth's precession.
It is the precession that underlies the explanations of the periodic changes that occur with the climate. The precession forms the tilt of the Earth's axis and changes the position of the planet in relation to the rays coming from the Sun. Those areas that are less illuminated do not receive enough solar heat and freeze. This is winter. In more illuminated places, summer reigns at the same time.
Figure: Schematic representation of the reasons for the change of seasons on Earth, depending on the tilt of the Earth's axis caused by precession.
Figure: June solstice (northern hemisphere top).
According to the traditional version, the Earth rotates while in space. Rotational motion is characterized by various moments - moment of force, moment of impulse, etc. - for which the main condition for their occurrence is the SHOULDER, which is measured from the point of suspension (center of gravity) to the point of application of the impact.
The precession of the gyroscope - and the Earth with its rotation is a gyroscope - appears when there is 1) external forces acting on the gyroscope, and 2) a non-zero shoulder between the point of application of external forces and the point of suspension of the gyroscope.
The precession of the Earth, if we consider it a spherical body, is equal to zero. And this is because the precession shoulder is equal to zero - the suspension point of the gyroscope "Earth" and its center of mass coincide. I.e
The Earth cannot and does not perform precessional motion, including those caused by the so-called gravity of the Sun
Moreover, in the case of the Earth, it does not matter what force and from where it affects the planet. Since the shoulder is zero, the precession will be zero anyway.
Meanwhile, regardless of the concept of the precession phenomenon in the traditional approach to the physics of the Earth, the climate is associated with the light and radiation effects of the Sun. Therefore, understanding the reasons for precession or its absence is extremely important.
Since we have shown that the precession cannot be caused by the Sun, it is necessary to understand the reasons for the annual change in illumination, identify the factors that form the precession period, and also establish the exact value of the precession period.
Andrey Tyunyaev
