Kitobni o'qish: «Solar system / Alternative theories»

Shrift:

In the book "Solar system" by Svetlana Denisova six theories are presented as an alternative to the conventional opinion. Astronomy is not the author’s profession, but a hobby. Mostly it is not scientific, and philosophical work. There are some simple formulas, calculations and tables. Reading this book does not require any special knowledge. The book is written in a simple and easy to understand language. This philosophical analysis allows us to understand a lot of things in the world around us.

1. Global climate changes

In the middle of the last century glaciers of Antarctica and Greenland have been thoroughly investigated. For these purposes the ice cores have been extracted from deep wells. These studies have shown, that for many thousands of years the climate is gradually cooling down. Periodically, once in 100–120 thousand years, the temperature rises sharply by about 10°C. This contradicts the fact, that the Earth's orbit decreases, as it follows from the theory #.2. The climate should become warmer. The climate has really become warmer in recent years, but it is connected, most likely, with the activity of civilization, and not with the orbit change. Gradual and constant cooling of the climate for many millennia is most likely due to a faster "burnout" of the Sun compared to a decrease of orbits.

It is known, that marine sediments are located even on the highest world peaks. From which it follows, that the surface of the "young" Earth has been more even, and it was covered completely or almost completely by the ocean. Initially, the life on Earth originated in the ocean. Mainland has been formed, probably, later. Conditions for life on the land first appeared on the poles. Then, as the climate grew cooler, the life spread from poles to the middle latitudes and then to the equator. Further cooling of the planet led to the formation and proliferation of ice caps at the poles, decrease of the world ocean level and land surface increase. The warm shallow seas were on the Earth in the period of small polar glaciers or their absence. The gradual transition of a significant part of the water from liquid state – into ice and moving to the poles led to bogging and complete drying of ancient seas. If all Antarctica and Greenland glaciers melted, all ancient seas would be in their place.

The expanding Antarctica glacier gradually displaced all living things to the shores. Less and less land, suitable for life, remained on this continent. All its inhabitants had to look for food in the ocean. There was a many-thousand-year process of changing species: land animals turned into marine inhabitants. Only those species of the polar continent inhabitants survived, which had adapted to live in water. Apparently, the mammals appeared in the ocean in this way: whales, dolphins, etc.

The ice age

Studies of ice cores, extracted from the wells of Antarctica and Greenland, allow determining the duration and the end of the last ice age. The graphs shows the results of the study of ice cores at the Russian polar station “Vostok” [1]


Graphs of studies of ice cores [2]

The top graph shows a change of deuterium content in the ice. This isotopic study was conducted throughout the cylindrical ice cores and provided the most detailed data. Other studies were conducted in interval 2.5 m and were more approximate. Reduction of deuterium content in the ice corresponds to a temperature decrease. The graph shows, that between the temperature maximum about 130 thousand years ago and its minimum about 12 thousand years ago, there was a steady temperature decrease, which sometimes was alternated with short warming.

On the Dome Concord 75° sl a glacier age was determined as 890 thousand years old, by the ice cores with the total length of 3270 m. Although the researchers believe this data was very approximate. The speed of cooling can be determined from the graphs. During 120 thousand years the temperature decreased by ~ 10°C. The last ice age ended 10-12 thousand years ago. By the end of the ice age the Earth has been so cool so, that the glaciers occupied, presumably, the fourth part of the continents. Glaciers themselves contribute to their spreading, by reflecting the sunlight and cooling the surrounding air.

In the Ice age a map of the Earth was somewhat different. The global sea level was lower, because a significant portion of the water was in the ice. The continents had a wider coastal zone, but a considerable part of them was under the ice and was not suitable for life. There were some islands in the Ice Age, which we can see now on the maps as shallow waters.

In the Ice Age lot of mammoths and other animals lived in cold climatic zones. They lived in the large parts of North America and Euro-Asia and were well adapted to the cold climate.

Ice Age ended, when climate warmed suddenly.