A mere 200 million years ago , the supercontinent of Pangea split apart and create the Continent we see on Earth today , separate by vast ocean . It ’s loose to think these mighty landmasses are here to outride , but it ’s likely that another supercontinent will decorate our major planet in the future .
It ’s very punishing to forebode what this supercontinentmight look like , but scientist surmise that all the continents except Antarctica could conjoin together around the north pole around 200 million geezerhood from now , forming the new supercontinent " Amasia " .
Alternatively , all the continents might hail together around the equator in about 250 million years , a theoretical supercontinent telephone " Aurica " .
How land could be distributed in the Aurica supercontinent (top) versus Amasia. The future land configurations are shown in gray, with modern-day outlines of the continents for comparison.Image credit: Way et al. 2020
depend on which of these scenario actually occur , the orbicular clime of Earth will be very , very different . In 2020 , scientists at Columbia University ’s Earth Institute prove what the climate of potentialsupercontinentsmight look like in the deep futurity . Their study was face online at the meeting of the American Geophysical Union in December 2020 .
Under the Amasia scenario , where the land is gather at the northward perch , the whole planet will enrol an Ice Age . The Earth ’s current hardening - up allow heat energy to transmit from the equator to the pole through confidential information and ocean currents , but without any land in the way of life , the heat is not easy transferred to the poles . In play , the perch would be importantly dusty and covered in water ice all year around .
Furthermore , the increase in water ice sheets would also move a piece like a mirror and ruminate sunlight back out of the atmosphere , known as trash - albedo feedback , make the major planet even cooler .
With Amasia , " you get a lot more snowfall , " Dr Michael Way , lead research worker and a physicist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies , an affiliate of Columbia University ’s Earth Institute , pronounce in astatement .
" You get Methedrine sheets , and you get this very effective icing - albedo feedback , which tend to lower the temperature of the planet , " noted Dr Way .
In the Aurica scenario , it would be a very dissimilar painting . The land gathered closer to the equator would steep the stronger sunlight there , leading to gamey temperature . This burden would also be hyperbolize by the absence seizure ofpolar internal-combustion engine caps , which contemplate heat out of Earth ’s atm . The result would be a landmass that perhaps seem like the beach of South America with drier inlands .
The molding also indicate that liquid water would subsist on around 60 percent of Amasia ’s land , as opposed to 99.8 percentage of Aurica ’s . The researchers say this insight could facilitate to inform astronomers when looking for potentially inhabitable planets in our galaxy thatcan harbor liquid weewee .
An earlier version of this article was published inJanuary 2021 .
