What really causes Ice Ages?

[SeekerOfTruth007]

Rhetorical Question.

I don't think it's Melancovich cycles, as the total solar input stays about the same either way on the planet. Instead, I think it's when a Rogue Planet makes a close fly-by of our Solar System. Any closer than about Neptune's position for a Saturn-sized Rogue Planet would totally screw up the orbital parameters of the Solar System, causing either an Ice Age or an Interglacial, depending on whether it passes to the near-side of Earth's orbit or the far-side of Earth's orbit, either tugging or pushing the Earth closer or Farther away from the Sun.

Just recently, a Saturn-sized Rogue Planet was discovered by Hubble and James Webb some 3000 Parsecs from Earth, or about 10,000 Light Years. This is absurdly far away and no threat, but imagine one of these suckers coming as close as Neptune and tugging the entire solar system out of alignment!

[genericname85]

i would say natural fluctuaion in the atmosphere caused mostly by the particular sort of organisms populating the planet. and it's cyclic cause certain organisms just spread untill the environment doesn't support their life anymore, then they die out and then they start over. temperature is just a symptom of that going on.

obviously there's possible cosmic influences on large time skales but if you look at all the time, life has been on the planet, i think that factor is mostly negligible.

[SeekerOfTruth007]

That IS happening all the time. The Great Oxidation Event is actually the greatest mass extinction in this planet's history, and yet all modern life is based on the presence of Oxygen in the atmosphere and Ocean.

[genericname85]

life is often specialized on particular atmospheric setup. the atmosphere is never made of just one gas. one gas may be important to one organism but the mix of other gases can make it impossible for certain organisms to survive. adaptation is constantly going on, so that's why some organisms die out while other survive. that's what evolution does. adapting life to the circumstances.

[strateguy632]

More than 100 years ago einstein explained gravity is not a force in general relativity. Also your example Saturn size ignores Saturn and Jupiter that are near! But don't pull us away from sun despite the alignment in 1977 when we sent voyager probe.

[SeekerOfTruth007]

Actually, the Earth moves 6 inches away from the Sun every year, in part due to Jupiter and Saturn pulling the Earth away, and in part due to tidal forces and radiation pressure from the Sun.

[Twalli]

I do know that volcanic eruptions can cause weird temperature fluctuations. Also, with the amount of methane and other dangerous gasses we're pumping into our atmosphere, weird weather is becoming more common. It was 23 degrees farenheight in Texas this morning. That's glacial for Texas. Their idea of really cold is in the 50s.

[exitseven]

A giant asteroid hits the Earth and throws up so much dust that the sunlight gets filtered so much that the earth cools and then we have an ICE Age.