Analysis chemical composition micrometeorites 2.7 billion years old showed that they passed through the atmosphere, . It goes against everything we were taught in school. It is known that at that time the Earth was dominated by anaerobic organisms, and they could not live in an oxygen atmosphere. Scientists have resolved this paradox: micrometeorites melt in the upper atmosphere. There, oxygen in that era could well have been formed during the decay carbon dioxide under the influence of ultraviolet. True, it is not clear why he did not then go down and poison the then bacteria. It turns out that the planet then had a "matryoshka atmosphere" with non-mixing layers. So far, something similar has been described only theoretical models for distant exoplanets, and the discovery of such oddities in the past of the Earth was not expected by anyone. Incidentally, it follows from the discovery that practical conclusion: An exoplanet could have a lot of oxygen in the atmosphere, even if there is no life at all.
2. The atmosphere 2.7 billion years ago was half as dense as it is today
Another group of researchers compared the size of air bubbles in 2.7 billion-year-old lava with modern ones and came to a surprising conclusion: the atmosphere of our planet at that time was than it is today. Approximately the same pressure acts on a person who has climbed above five kilometers. This means that on Earth 2.7 billion years ago there were conditions that scientists rightly refer to as "alien". Water had to boil at temperatures below 70 degrees, and no birds in that atmosphere could fly in principle, even despite the presence of oxygen in its upper layers. On this "alien" Earth, even sunrises and sunsets would look different: with twice as rarefied an atmosphere of red tones, there would be much less.
3 Young Earth Bacteria Nearly Eaten All The Air
New information about the density of the atmosphere at that time very sharply raised the question: where did half of the earth's atmosphere, where did she "hide" for so long and where did she come from again? An international team of scientists quickly responded to the challenge and calculated that the only conceivable reason all these oddities were . Bacteria did not have a brain, but they multiplied very actively, using nitrogen as construction material for your new copies. As it turned out, in just a couple of billion years of their activity, they had to absorb and "hide" in insoluble compounds more than half of the entire atmosphere - that is, as much as was found in the analysis of lava samples.
Such an unbridled race for food and reproduction should have led to climatic and ecological disaster. Scooping nitrogen out of the air, bacteria dramatically reduced Greenhouse effect, and the Sun then shone almost 20 percent fainter than it does today. The planet was threatened by global freezing. Fortunately, a group of aerobes (bacteria that use oxygen) then succeeded in mass production of oxygen through photosynthesis and poisoned the anaerobes with this gas, driving them into secondary ecological niches. In the presence of such a strong oxidizing agent as oxygen, the bound nitrogen gradually returned to the atmosphere. Its compounds were chemically unstable in the presence of oxygen and oxidized to form nitrogen oxides and water vapor. Nitrogen oxides decomposed over time into nitrogen and oxygen. By doing this, he saved the Earth from freezing, and also made possible the subsequent prosperity. difficult life. By the way, calculations showed that if it were not for death from oxygen, nitrogen-fixing anaerobes would today would eat up almost the entire atmosphere of the planet.
4 Earth Was Warm 3 Billion Years Ago Despite A “Weak” Atmosphere
History with anomalous drastic changes The density of the Earth's gaseous envelope billions of years ago indicated that science does not yet understand why the planet did not freeze then. If now we weaken the Sun by 20 percent, then the Earth will quickly become covered with ice. However, three billion years ago there were no traces of ice on it. How was this possible when the atmosphere was depleted by greedy bacteria and was less able to retain heat?
It is assumed that the whole thing is in some powerful greenhouse gases, which were then present in it in abundance. However, so far all calculations show that there was no carbon dioxide in the required volumes. What specifically prevented the planet from freezing until 2.4 billion years ago (the time when the first glaciers appeared on it) is, alas, still unknown. In 2016, it was suggested that in the first billion years the planet was heated by asteroids. When falling, they evaporated a lot of frozen gases due to the energy of super-powerful explosions and thereby increased the greenhouse effect. However, this effect should have come to naught already in the second billion years. earth history, and what saved the planet from freezing further is not entirely clear.
5. Underground oceans turned out to be more full-flowing than terrestrial ones
One of the most common water-containing materials on Earth is brucite, which exists in the upper layers of its mantle. However, since scientists do not have access to hundreds of kilometers down, they estimated lower bound distribution of brucite based on its resistance to pressure. It was believed that starting from 400 kilometers and deeper, brucite decomposes. The released water quickly rises and returns to the seas of the Earth.
However, in 2016, what with such high pressure brucite often simply forms a new, more stable phase, allowing it to exist at much greater depths. It consists of 30% water, which means that there is much more of it in the mantle than previously thought. Now geologists are trying to figure out exactly how much water could be tied up in brucite 400-600 kilometers below sea level.
If the Earth were evenly covered with water, all of its oceans would be enough to create a layer three kilometers deep. If even a few percent of the mantle at this depth is made of brucite (and a number of signs indicate this), there could be much more water there than in all the oceans of the planet.
6. The planet's magnetic field has shown its unreliability
Recent data from satellite observations of the Earth's magnetic field showed the unexpected: in just a couple of years, its strength in various densely populated areas planet by 2-3 percent, mostly downward. Prior to this, it was believed that noticeable changes in its strength occur quite rarely. The researchers note that their data may indicate much less field stability than previously thought. Perhaps his most drastic changes - including the actual "off" when inverted magnetic poles planets are also more common than is commonly believed.
During weakening magnetic field flow cosmic rays reaching the surface of the planet becomes stronger. It is not yet clear how this may affect the health of its inhabitants. It is known that 780,000 years ago the magnetic field weakened by at least 20 times. Presumably, something similar could have happened 40,000 years ago. In both cases, no extinctions were noted, although the level radiation background on Earth should have increased significantly for some time.
7. It became clear why the Earth is so cold and there is little oxygen
For most of its history, our planet was much warmer than it is today, and therefore free of permanent ice caps. It is clear from the geological data that this was achieved by more carbon dioxide in the air. But that is why it has fallen so sharply in the last million years that formerly flowering and wooded New Earth and other Arctic regions became a desert, remained unclear for a long time.
A group of American scientists explain the situation. Using simulations, the researchers showed that when one lithospheric plate slightly prying the edge of the other, it can bring up the oceanic crust and thus make it land. Such a crust has not been in contact with the air of the planet for a very long time and therefore has practically no carbon dioxide in its composition. Because of this, the former ocean floor can absorb this gas in large quantities.
In the last million years, Australia, moving north, has tampered with the oceanic crust near Java and is carrying it up. Due to the high rate of erosion (heavy rains, high temperatures) in the equatorial regions, the process of carbon dioxide fixation is going very well there. At the same time, the rest of the planet cools, which leads to oddities like ice ages, the appearance of tundras and the like.
By the way, another group of scientists is certain that for the last 800 thousand years, due to this cooling, the oxygen content in the atmosphere has been falling. The transformation of a large part of the land into arctic and tropical desert inevitably reduces the production of oxygen by plants. Therefore, even 800 thousand years ago, this gas in the atmosphere was 0.7 percent more. This difference doesn't seem like much. The amount of oxygen in the air of a poorly ventilated room is reduced by about the same amount. However, if the then living ancestors of man were transported to our time, then at first they would involuntarily yawn more often, trying to compensate for the lack of this gas in the air.
8 Global Warming Has Set A Series Of Records
In 2016, the temperature on the planet than in all 137 years of systematic observations. True, in our time such news, in principle, appear almost every year. Much more significant is the fact that the concentration of carbon dioxide over Antarctica for the first time in millions of years. Biological and industrial activity there is minimal, so the achievement of concentration over Antarctica greenhouse gas, which even in the 20th century was not over any continent of the Earth - a really significant result.
9. Russia has taken on heavy commitments to combat warming, but, fortunately, does not have to fulfill them yet
With a succession of temperature and carbon records, it has become quite difficult to ignore the reality of global warming. Even Russian astronomers, whom it deprived of the majority clear nights for stargazing. Therefore, in 2016 there were many signings of the Paris Agreement to combat global warming. Russia did not escape the common fate either.
The agreement calls for keeping the global average temperature from rising by 2.0 degrees Celsius and "making an effort" to limit the increase in temperature to no more than 1.5 degrees. This goal can be achieved only if carbon dioxide emissions become zero in the second half of the century. To do this, in theory, Russia will have to drastically change technologies in almost all industries, transport, Agriculture and construction. Fortunately, while this is a matter of the distant future. The agreement calls on countries to reduce their emissions from 1990 levels. Our country did this before signing it, because its industry is still weaker than in 1991. Therefore, we will not have to fulfill the agreement for the first years.
Where worse situation will be in 10–20 years, when its implementation will require either a reduction in industrial production or the closure of operating power plants (and, as a result, an increase in energy prices). However, this is still a long way off, so it's too early to worry. In addition, even before that, the Paris Agreement will lead to such a restriction on the consumption of Russian hydrocarbons abroad that new problems are unlikely to radically worsen the situation.
10. Global warming caused the planet to bloom and reduced the area of deserts.
Numerous temperature records have left their mark on the biosphere. As another 2016 paper showed, as the planet warms total rainfall will increase - especially in previously arid zones. In addition, due to the increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide, plants can now grow even where they would not have had enough rain before.
In general, countries like Ethiopia because of this process: there will increase both the total amount of vegetation and crop yields. Moreover, experts in the study of the Sahara note that in the past 30 years, due to increased precipitation, the desert as a whole and in particular its southern outskirts - the Sahel - have gradually begun to turn green. However, the Paris Agreement (and others like it) is unlikely to allow this process to be completed, so the smooth greening of the earth's deserts is unlikely to become long-term.
Global warming 2016 could be the beginning of the end and this is no joke. The warming on our planet has become irrevocable, scientists say. These are the findings of a global study conducted by 413 climatologists from 58 countries. This is reported by the annual bulletin of the American Meteorological Society.
Even if humanity drastically reduces carbon dioxide emissions, the world's oceans will continue to warm for the next hundreds, if not thousands, of years, scientists say. An increase in the temperature of the planet's water cover entails an increase in the average temperature of the atmosphere, the melting of glaciers, and an increase in the heating of the upper layers of land.
Thomas Carl, Bulletin Coordinator National Administration Oceanic and Atmospheric Research (NOAA), notes that all indicators indicate a change in the climate of our planet in all its corners, from the ocean depths to the upper atmosphere. The data released by NOAA is really frightening: last year, the content of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere amounted to 397.2 parts per million (ppm) compared to 354 parts 25 years ago. And this is not surprising, because since 1990 industrial emissions into the atmosphere have increased 4 times.
In 2014, a record was set for the temperature above the land surface, since the beginning of such observations since 1880. Last year it was 0.88 degrees higher than in late XIX century, and 0.37-0.44 degrees more than at the end of the XX - early XXI centuries
The level of the World Ocean has increased by 6.2 centimeters compared to the end of the last century. This is not catastrophic, but scientists are much more concerned about changes in the main currents: for example, the Gulf Stream, which has always served as a kind of stove for Europe, is literally weakening before our eyes. At the same time, the number of hurricanes arising over oceanic masses has increased by 10 percent compared to the 90s of the last century.
In 2016, carbon dioxide emissions will break a record
The volume of carbon dioxide emissions, main reason global warming, increases again since 2015, reaching a record high of 40000000000 tons. Released data from the Global Carbon Project shows a possible increase of 2.6%. The information was published on the eve of the climate summit in New York, where world leaders discussed future actions in connection with climate change.
The latest annual report under the Global Carbon Budget - a project that examines, among other things, the carbon dioxide cycle in the atmosphere - indicates that further CO2 emissions cannot exceed 1.2 trillion tons. Under this condition, there is a chance that the annual increase in average temperature will be less than two degrees Celsius. At current emission rates, the 1.2 trillion "quota" will be exceeded over the next 30 years. In other words, it will happen in one generation. If urgent action is not taken, then soon there will be no one to achieve coziness and comfort in a small apartment.
Global warming 2016 unstoppable - scientists
Ecologists note that in order to avoid significant climate change on the planet, more than half of all combustible minerals should remain unexplored. For the time being, new technologies for storing carbon in the depths will be developed and introduced.
Professor Corine Le Coeur, director of the Tyndel Center for Climate Research (UK), notes:
Human influence on climate change on the face. If we want to slow them down, then we need to sustainably reduce carbon dioxide emissions from burning fossil fuels. We are now too far from meeting the conditions necessary to keep the summer temperature rise within two degrees. For many countries in the world, even the richest, reaching this level is already difficult. Policy makers at the New York Summit should think very hard about limiting their choices, as climatology has shown.
The annual Global Carbon Budget provides a forecast overall indicators 2015, and also provides last year's data by country and per capita.
Changes in the Earth's climate, observed by scientists, worries more and more every day. It's extremely actual problem which cannot be ignored. Mankind can face many troubles - earthquakes, floods, volcanic eruptions and so on.
Over the past 50 years temperature rise rate earth's surface twice as high as hundred years ago(Over the past hundred years, the average temperature has risen by 0.74°C). Also, in mind increase in greenhouse gas concentration, an increase in the average temperature of the earth's surface by 3°C is expected.
All the current warming phenomena in the world bring powerful heat waves, increased drought in some regions and more powerful precipitation in others, a new wind regime, melting glaciers and, as a result, sea level rise.
Let's find out what climate expert James Hansen predicts for 2016.
Hansen was born on March 29, 1941 in the city of Denison (USA, Iowa). James Hansen is American professor Department of Ecology and Earth Sciences, Columbia University, as well as a NASA employee. The 74-year-old scientist is known for his extensive climate research. Twenty-seven years ago, in a speech to Congress, Hansen elaborated on the effects of concentration in the atmosphere. greenhouse gases and global warming in general.
It was an incredibly courageous act, as Senator Tim Wirta, then chairman of Congress, recalls: “In 1988, James first announced the impact of human activity on the increase in the temperature of the planetary atmosphere. It took a lot of courage. After all, then he was the only one who dared to speak publicly about it. Since then, his voice has never stopped.
J. Hansen's prediction
In 1981, James Hansen and a group of scientists, after conducting a long study of the Earth's climate, wrote an article in which he spoke in detail about the warming on the planet, which is associated with the accumulation of carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere.
Hansen emphasizes that humanity has long crossed the critical line of greenhouse gas emissions into the atmosphere: "We have reached the point where emergency acquired planetary scales. We have come close to turning point throughout the global climate system. If we miss it, then huge systemic changes will begin, and the process will get out of control.
According to his prediction for 2016, it may happen that arctic ice will melt completely in just one summer season. Of course, this can be prevented - just stop burning fossil fuels and stop using coal, which is the main source of greenhouse gases.
“We have already reached one point of no return, and during the summer season we can lose all the Arctic ice cover. This will happen due to an imbalance in the energy balance of the planet,” says Hansen.
The professor attracts the public, politicians to the problem of climate on our planet. He often gives interviews, appears on television, and writes to world leaders, including US President Barack Obama.
Hansen publishes books that tell dire consequences thoughtless activities of mankind in the event that people do not take up their minds and do not take measures to reduce fuel use. If no steps are taken in this direction, natural disasters will be destructive on an unprecedented scale, entire species of animals and plants will disappear, and the melting of glaciers will entail an unprecedented rise in sea levels. In other words, Hansen predicts the end of the world for the whole world.
Climatologists from the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) recorded another increase in temperature: October 2016 turned out to be 1.2 degrees warmer compared to the usual averages. Thanks to this, the outgoing year claims to be the hottest in the history of observations, which have been conducted since the 19th century.
"In many Arctic regions Russia. Temperatures in many other arctic and subarctic regions - in Russia, Alaska and northwest Canada - were at least 3 degrees above normal. We are used to measuring climate change in fractions of a degree, but this is a completely different picture,” said WMO Secretary-General Petteri Taalas.
After such statements, environmentalists again started talking about. However, no one forgot about him: recent studies suggest that , and .
It is important that the measured values are close to critical mark, which was designated by the participating countries. Recall that then the leaders of the states agreed to keep global warming within 1.5-2 degrees of the average temperature of the pre-industrial era.
However, the climate is changing faster than expected. The phenomenon made a significant contribution to warming, but experts still consider it the main reason. And since their volume does not decrease, the thermometer will also continue to creep up. According to forecasts, 2017 promises to be no less hot than the current one, although climatologists do not yet expect new “heat records”.
Much will become clear with the arrival of winter: according to some forecasts, it should become the most severe in the last hundred years, and in all countries of the planet. There are also reasons to believe that spring will be late with the arrival in Europe: the temperature will rise to the spring norm only in early April.
Such weather conditions experts associate with traffic violations air masses: snowfalls and storms, which we owe to cyclones from the south. They are expected to be followed by the arrival of cold masses of Arctic air.
We add that this year the climate results were summed up earlier than usual due to the UN World Conference on Climate Change (COP-22), which started not so long ago in Morocco. In addition, on November 4, the Paris Agreement came into force to replace the Kyoto Protocol. And now it becomes clear.
- Translation
Science is facts. Houses are made of stone, but science is made of facts. But a pile of stones is not a house, and a pile of facts is not necessarily science.
- Jules Henri Poincaré
With what greater height you fall, the faster you will move when you hit the ground.
This seems very obvious. This is understandable intuitively, based on your experience. If you drop an egg with enough high altitude, it will break.
And if jumping from a springboard is not so scary, jumping from a higher height may already begin to excite you. 
Even if you've never done it, you assume that if you jump from a high enough height, you might crash at the end of the jump. So how can you know if it's safe or not? Are you too high to jump?
Believe it or not, that's what science is all about, and that's how we become scientists.
We are given one big myth about scientific method as if there was one fixed way to do science. If you remove all pretentiousness, it turns out that science is a way to understand the world around you.
If this happens, then what happens next? You don't sit back and rant about your thoughts on this matter - you go and investigate. You make observations, you make measurements of all those things that happen in different conditions.
Perhaps you will recognize that there are some heights from which you cannot jump safely, and even be able to quantify them. And when you're satisfied with your findings, you can put all your knowledge together and say something smart and informed, like:
The more you fall, the faster you will move when you hit the ground.
And this statement brings all your investigations, observations, measurements and experiences together, and describes not only the experience you have received, but also extrapolates it to more general case, allowing you to make predictions about what will happen in cases you haven't experienced yet.
Having reached this point, you will be at the start of what can be called scientific theory. You can start making predictions if you tune the system in a certain way. If what your theory predicted happens, it confirms it. But every theory has a limit, a point where it stops working.
In our example, the theory stops working when the object reaches a steady speed, when the force of air resistance is compared with the force of gravity, accelerating the fall. At this point, the height from which you fell is no longer important - you will not fall faster.
But science, of course, can do more. Instead of the qualitative statement above, we can determine, based on exact definition all interacting forces (including gravity, air resistance, wind speed, etc.), how fast and in what direction the falling object will move at any given time. Quantitatively.
And testing this theory each time under new conditions and under new circumstances, we either get confirmation that our best theory copes with new conditions, or we find that the theory does not describe everything.
And most In the history of mankind, science has progressed incredibly slowly.
Magnetism was first discovered in the 13th century (discovered by Pierre Pelerin de Maricourt), but it was not until the 19th century that its connection with electricity was understood and electric charge, and a successful description of the quantum mechanics that governs magnetism has been made relatively recently.
Subsequent openings were not canceled early theories they simply discovered the limitations of early ideas and went beyond them.
Biology did not start with the discovery of a fundamental source genetic code. Before the structure and working of DNA became known, scientists already knew a lot about genetics and heredity. If we bred certain creatures with certain characteristics, we have long been able to predict the characteristics that their offspring will have.
And before understanding genetics - the mechanisms of inheritance - we could determine that the properties of living things change over time, including the main mechanism for this change.
And even before Darwinism became the leading scientific theory, people were engaged in animal husbandry to obtain desired characteristics for 10,000 years.
Of course, today science already knows too much for one person to become an expert on all issues of all sciences. Therefore, we have scientific experts who know important details their areas. Alternative theory evolution should not only explain everything that the theory of evolution explains, but also include genetics, DNA and everything else that has been built on evolution.
The same goes for the universe.
At some point in the past, the Big Bang theory was not even the leading theory about the early stages of the universe. But there were observations relic radiation, the evolution of galaxies, the initial abundance of elements - and the alternatives fell away, unable to continue. Today the Big Bang model predicts various phenomena– gravitational lensing, large-scale space structures, fluctuations in the microwave background radiation, etc. – and they all match the observations perfectly, unlike any alternatives.
Reaching a scientific consensus on any issue is very difficult because the evidence must be very strong. If there are several reasonable explanations corresponding to the obtained data even with some error, no consensus can be reached.
We are skeptics. We don't believe explanations that just sound plausible. We observe. We are counting. We predict. We test and change our theories. We test their limits and move on. We demand the repetition of experiments and the quantitative accuracy of the theory's predictions.
But if all the alternatives turn out to be much worse - as in the case of evolution and the Big Bang - you will see that more than 95% of experts in this field agree. And when these facts pose a threat public health and security is very important.
You won't die if you don't believe in Big Bang. You will simply be wrong and you will not have a deep and solid understanding of your origins and existence. You are free to choose, of course. But if you choose to taste mercury or lead, smoke a pack of cigarettes a day, breathe heavily polluted air, or ingest small amounts of polonium, the consequences are far more serious. The same is true for the Earth.
Scientists studying global warming and climate change have reached a consensus. I have met a lot of skepticism, and although I enjoyed describing the details that I understand, I am not a climatologist, and I cannot be the expert who proves the theory is motivated. I have to trust the experts and their consensus.
This consensus has four simple components:
1. The earth is heating up and this heating is accelerating.
2.Heating is mainly caused by human activity characterized by the emission of greenhouse gases.
3. If the emission of gases continues, the temperature will continue to rise. As a result, ice caps will melt, sea levels will rise, and the climate of many regions will change dramatically.
4. All these possibilities - and their attendant natural Disasters– must be avoided, for they are harmful and dangerous.
Consensus is very strong on the first three points (corresponding to the 95% I mentioned), and while I haven't heard anyone of note object to the fourth point, it's possible that there are.
Points two and three are very hard to scientifically object to, since humans have already emitted over a trillion tons of greenhouse gases, which has increased the temperature in the same way that wrapping yourself in blankets will increase your temperature. The physics is so clear and simple that - except for the task of quantitatively modeling the limits of temperature increase - there is no room for discussion.
Therefore, climate change skeptics have focused on the first point: they are trying to deny the rise in temperature of the Earth and its acceleration. Richard Mueller, a well-known skeptic, called for measurements and scrutiny of previous measurements of global average temperature, and to test how confident we should be in NOAA, NASA GISS and other claims that the Earth's temperature is rising. What is the result?
The unified database of temperature data contains 1.6 billion records, available at www.BerkeleyEarth.org. There you can read the work and check them. As can be seen, they confirm the results with great accuracy. previous works, showing that over the past 60 years, temperatures have risen by an average of 1 degree Celsius, and that over the past 30 years, the rate of increase has been increasing.
