A group of scientists from the Universities of Chicago and Yale in the United States, together with their Austrian colleagues from the University of Vienna, joined the debate about the reasons for the complete icing of the Earth in the Neoproterozoic epoch, more than 700 million years ago. . According to them, meteorites may have caused the long-term cooling. The study was published in the scientific journal magazine Science Advancement (SciAdv).
It is known that approximately 717 million years ago, the Earth was covered with ice from the poles to the equator and turned into a snow globe. The planet remained in this state for the next 52 million years.
The team examined the possibility of sudden climate change due to external impacts caused by an asteroid impact. Scientists have performed computer simulations of atmospheric and ocean circulation that take into account the formation of sea ice under various conditions.
The results showed that the impact of a large asteroid could freeze the planet in just 10 years, with the thickness of the ice at the equator reaching 10 meters (three times greater than in the modern Arctic). This speed is explained by the fact that 700 million years ago the planet was already a fairly cool place.
Previous researchers in the name The global icing of the Earth is caused by a decrease in carbon dioxide emissions from volcanoes.