DendroicaOkay, this ain't exactly "orbital mechanics & it's implications for paleoclimate proxy data usefulness for beginners" but... I've been leading up to this; it has a very important message towards the end, here it goes.
This might come as a shock, but the Earth revolves around the sun.
And it does so in an irregular but predictable way, based on the gravitational pull the other planets have on Earth- it's irregular but predictable & it causes major changes in our orbital path.
Our orbit isn't circular but elliptical- that ellipse can be quite a bit "out of round" or it can be nearly round - we're just about as round now as it gets- only 5 million Km separates the closest we get to the sun in any year, to the farthest.
Why is this so important?
Because the poles only get sunlight roughly half of the year, and the greater the axial tilt, the "further up" the sun gets.
If your summer is when the earth is farther away, your polar ice caps won't melt as much.
This encourages glaciation.
This might come as a shock, but the Earth revolves around the sun.
And it does so in an irregular but predictable way, based on the gravitational pull the other planets have on Earth- it's irregular but predictable & it causes major changes in our orbital path.
Our orbit isn't circular but elliptical- that ellipse can be quite a bit "out of round" or it can be nearly round - we're just about as round now as it gets- only 5 million Km separates the closest we get to the sun in any year, to the farthest.
Why is this so important?
Because the poles only get sunlight roughly half of the year, and the greater the axial tilt, the "further up" the sun gets.
If your summer is when the earth is farther away, your polar ice caps won't melt as much.
This encourages glaciation.
