![]() The breadth of affected disciplines was another appeal of the experiment. “Our model is run with the full biogeochemistry,” said Ziemen, “so we could study what happens in the ocean and with land vegetation.” To go beyond the prior simulations was another. Replicating the earlier research was one motivation for Ziemen and his colleagues to do the experiment. “Experiments like this force us to place our basic understanding of the Earth system on a completely different stage and test that understanding in new ways.” “Our climate and Earth system form an incredibly complex web of processes and feedbacks, and there is only one Earth, so it’s very difficult to run controlled experiments on it to see how it works!” he told Eos. Robin Smith of the University of Reading in the United Kingdom, who led the 2008 research but was not involved with this latest study, applauds the continued interest in the retrograde approach to climatology. These researchers were not the first to model the retrograde Earth their poster at the EGU conference cites two similar investigations in 20. “You can find cyanobacteria, and they may locally be important, but not in a large region.” Prior Retro-Earths Whereas cyanobacterial blooms occur often on the actual Earth, they remain relatively small in scale, Ziemen said. The resulting water with low levels of nitrate made it possible for cyanobacteria, which don’t need nitrate, to become the dominant biological producers across a broad expanse of ocean where that nutrient-depleted water reached the surface. In the northern Indian Ocean, the interplay of circulation and high biological production caused low levels of oxygen at greater depths, making it necessary for microorganisms there to consume nitrate instead. The retrograde rotating Earth also included an unanticipated cyanobacterial surge. Instead, the southeastern United States and large parts of Brazil and Argentina had become deserts. However, Ziemen was surprised to see the Sahara Desert was gone, and the Middle East had all the precipitation it needed. Winds from the east brought a more temperate climate to the Atlantic coast of the United States, for example, but severe winters to western Europe. ![]() The computer model showed a planet with some expected changes. ![]() They also reversed the daily path of the Sun, with New York 5 hours ahead of London. They then reversed the sense of the Coriolis force that tugs on all moving matter on a rotating planet, so that any cyclone would henceforth go clockwise on the Northern Hemisphere. To create their version of a retro-Earth, Ziemen’s team stopped all movement of water and air. Credit: Alexander Winkler/Max Planck Institute for Meteorology The Expected and the Unexpected Dark and light blue show that western Europe became much colder than on the real planet. The tropics remained warm and humid (red) as they are on the actual Earth, but deserts (yellow) formed mainly in the Americas, no longer dominating North Africa and the Middle East. The colors indicate different climate types. Get the most fascinating science news stories of the week in your inbox every Friday.Ĭlimate zones on the retrograde rotating Earth. The findings were presented Monday at the annual General Assembly of the European Geosciences Union (EGU) in Vienna, Austria. The computer simulation revealed a backward spinning planet with a dramatically different distribution and abundance of desert lands, an otherworldly surge of cyanobacteria, and rerouted ocean currents, among other differences from our real, familiar planet. It was as simple as that to create a “retrograde rotating Earth,” which they watched develop as the model’s virtual calendar ticked off 7,000 years. In a computer model of Earth’s evolving climate, Ziemen and his colleagues reversed a few key physical processes that are the result of Earth’s actual rotational direction, called prograde rotation. “You probably wouldn’t see the Earth anymore.” He used a gentler approach to find the answer. What would the planet’s new climate be like?Īctually, an asteroid impact strong enough to pull that off would do the job a bit too well, says Florian Ziemen of the Max Planck Institute for Meteorology in Hamburg, Germany. Suppose some cosmic event, say, an asteroid impact, stopped Earth from rotating and then set it spinning the other way.
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