Here is someting I haven't heard anyone discuss. Say what you will about AGW, real or not real who cares. What is far more important is that the moon is retreating at a rate of about 1.5 in per year. You want to talk climate change? It will come in spades when the Earths starts to wobble. Look the hell out. Instead of trying to figure carbon footprints and alternative fuels they should be trying to figure out how to keep that big rock from drifting away.
The earth has always wobbled. It is not a perfect sphere. Worse, it has a liquid mantle with continents floating atop it. The continents are not evenly distributed, so the earth wobbles. Why? The recession of the moon has no effect on humans. It will take 10 billion years for the moon to become a planet. That is 25 times longer than any species has existed through time.
I know However it wobbles within a certain range because of the gravity dance that it does with the moon. When the moon gets far enough away (not really concerned on when or if it ever becomes a planet) this will disrupt the Earths tilt in a way that will make agw kooks wish for carbon. The Sahara could become Antarctica that type of stuff. At an inch and a half a year....
Indeed, but over 10 billion years. That is three times the total timespan of life on earth. The chances that humans will be here is practically zero
I've never found this time estimate. I know the sun has roughly 5 billion years left, andromeda will eventually swallow the milky way, and so on and so on. Just never found an estimate as to how far away the moon has to be before we go off kilter. Where did you find 10 billion?
It's a number tossed out by a number of astrophysicists as the amount of time that it would take for the moon to double its orbital radius, become mor affected by solar gravity, and become a planet instead of a moon of a planet. Others calculate, however, that in 50 billion years the moon and earth will be in tidal lock and the moon would then rotate at the same speed as the earth and become geostationary to us. But the point is moot, since the sun will expand and absorb the earth in 5 billion years. Curious About Astronomy: Cornell U. Facts about the Moon: Universe Today
