ICE AGE

Book
Earth: The Operators' Manual


Author
Richard B. Alley


Chapter
11 and the beginning of 12


7-10 Bullets

• Volcanoes cause a slight change of a few tenths of a degree in a year
• This effect disappears in about a year
• Ice Ages are caused by the "changes in the distribution of sunshine on the planet driven by features of Earth's orbit" (Alley 133)
• CO2 levels are the main cause for growing ice on Antartica (Ice Ages)
• The drifting continents are also a cause for the ice on Antartica
• The peaks of ice ages are seperated out by about 100,000 years
• The small ice ages, "wiggles", are seperated by about 40,000 to 20,000 years
• Drifting continents and tilting orbit caused large climate changes

Summary

 In this book Earth: The Operators' Manual, Richard B. Alley explains in this chapter explains the problems that the world may be having due to ice ages.One example that supports this main idea is him explaining how far appart the large and small ice ages are occuring. Another fact that supports this main idea is that he explains that Milutin Milankovitch predicted the up and comng ice ages by calculating the changes of sunshine on the earth. Finally, the author gives reason that the heat coming from volcanoes is cooling the CO2 levels which helps stop ice ages.to support the main idea. These ideas are similar  to my past learning about how the world could possibly end because ice ages and other possible natural disasters could end the world.