HISTORY7 - Earth's Climate: The First 4.54 Billion Years
This blog is planned as the first of a two-part series on Earth’s climate. This article will cover the history of the Earth’s climate, from the formation of the Earth up to today - using accepted scientific theory and facts as far as possible. The second article, in a follow-up blog posting, will discuss Earth’s current and future climate and Man’s effect on it, including global warming and climate change - with a heavy dose of my opinions included. My objective with this first article is to “get straight in my head” the historical background and key drivers of Earth’s climate to better understand what is happening today and lay the stage for talking about the future. This is obviously a very complex subject and I have simplified wherever possible. I discuss my interpretation of the history of the Earth’s climate. I do not discuss the details of the study of Earth’s rock layers and sediment and glacial cores which support the climate history. ...