Orbital Forces Caused Climate Change 1.4 Billion Years Ago

It turns out that the same forces that are causing climate change today caused climate change 1.4 billion years ago. The findings could be important for better understanding what might happen to our environment in the future.

Fluctuating climate is natural for Earth. Our planet goes through ice ages before warming once more. Today, the present greenhouse effect is one of the major forces affected Earth's climate. On a larger scale, though, the Earth's orbit can also affect its climate; however, the changes usually happen over thousands of years.

In order to better understand the changes happening to Earth's environment, researchers analyzed sedimentary records from the Xiamaling Formation in China, which is roughly 1.4 billion years old. This formation preserved evidence of repeated climate fluctuations, reflecting apparent changes in wind patterns and ocean circulation that indicates orbital forcing of climate change.

"Earth's climate history is complex," said Donald Canfield, one of the researchers, in a news release. "With this research we can show that cycles like the Milankovich cycles were at play 1.4 billion years ago-a period we know only very little about. This research will also help us understand how Milankovitch cyclicity ultimately controls climate change on Earth."

Milankovich cycles are essentially climate fluctuations. In all, there are three different cycles, and they occur each 20,000, 40,000 and 100,000 years. Over the last one million years, these cycles have caused ice ages every 100,000 years, and right now we are in the middle of a warming period that has lasted for the past 11,000 years.

In this case, the scientists looked at repeated, shot-term climate fluctuations 1.4 billion years ago. It turns out that orbital forcing of climate change helped contribute to shaping the Earth's climate during this time period. This, in turn, tells us a bit more about the climate change of today and shows how the Earth's orbit has a major impact.

The findings are published in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

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