Research published in Geophysical Research Letters, using computer models from the last 400 million years to calculate how “isolated” each was hemisphere by the mass of the continent. This is a lock that holds the heat inside instead of releasing it.
Earth has a hot, red fluid interior that warms the entire planet from within. It also rotates, generating gravity and the earth’s magnetic field. This holds our protective atmosphere near the Earth’s surface.
Over a very long period of time, this interior will continue to cool until Earth becomes like Mars. The surprise in the new study is how the heat dissipates unevenly, but the reasons make sense. That is, parts of the Earth have been isolated by more land, creating a layer of the Thermos that traps heat.
This contrasts with how the Earth has lost most of its heat. “The thermal evolution of the Earth is largely controlled by the rate of heat loss through the oceanic lithosphere,” wrote the study authors. Popular Mechanics.
Earth’s mantle like oven the convection that drives the treadmill. Every day, the sea floor moves slightly; The new seabed was born from magma that erupted in parts of the continent, while the old seabed was crushed and melted under the existing continental landmass.
To study the thermal behavior of the Earth’s interior, scientists created a model that divides the Earth into parts of Africa and the Pacific. Then divide the entire surface of the Earth into lattices with latitude and longitude half a degree.
Scientists combined several previous models for things like the age of the ocean floor and the position of the continents over the past 400 million years. Then, the team calculated how much heat each grid cell contained over their long life. This paved the way for calculating the overall cooling rate, during which the researchers found the Pacific side was cooling faster.
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