What Will the Climate Be Like When Earth's Next Supercontinent Forms?

Long ago, all the continents were crammed together into one large land mass called Pangea. Pangea broke apart almost 200 million years ago, its pieces globe-trotting away on the tectonic plates — merely not permanently. The continents will reunite again in the deep futurity. And a new study, which will be presented December 8 during an online poster session at the meeting of the American Geophysical Union, suggests that the time to come arrangement of this supercontinent could dramatically bear on the habitability and climate stability of Globe. The findings also accept implications for searching for life on other planets.

The study, which has been submitted for publication, is the first to model the climate on a supercontinent in the deep future.

Scientists aren't exactly sure what the next supercontinent will look like or where information technology volition be located. One possibility is that, 200 one thousand thousand years from now, all the continents except Antarctica could join together effectually the due north pole, forming the supercontinent "Amasia." Another possibility is that "Aurica" could form from all the continents coming together effectually the equator in well-nigh 250 million years.

maps showing current continents and two potential supercontinent

How land could be distributed in the Aurica supercontinent (peak) versus Amasia. The future land configurations are shown in gray, with modernistic-solar day outlines of the continents for comparison. Credit: Fashion et al. 2020

In the new written report, researchers used a 3D global climate model to simulate how these two country mass arrangements would affect the global climate system. The inquiry was led past Michael Way, a physicist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Infinite Studies, an chapter of Columbia University's Earth Institute.

The team found that, past irresolute atmospheric and body of water circulation, Amasia and Aurica would have profoundly different effects on the climate. The planet could end up being 3 degrees Celsius warmer if the continents all converge around the equator in the Aurica scenario.

In the Amasia scenario, with the country clustered around both poles, the lack of country in between disrupts the ocean conveyor chugalug that currently carries heat from the equator to the poles. Equally a result, the poles would exist colder and covered in ice all year long. And all of that ice would reflect estrus out into space.

With Amasia, "you lot get a lot more snowfall," explained Way. "You get ice sheets, and yous get this very constructive ice-albedo feedback, which tends to lower the temperature of the planet."

In addition to cooler temperatures, Way suggested that body of water level would probably be lower in the Amasia scenario, with more than h2o tied upwards in the ice caps, and that the snowy atmospheric condition could mean that there wouldn't exist much state available for growing crops.

Aurica, past contrast, would probably be a chip beachier, he said. The land full-bodied closer to the equator would absorb the stronger sunlight there, and there would be no polar ice caps to reflect heat out of Globe'due south atmosphere — hence the college global temperature.

Although Style likens Aurica'south shores to the paradisiacal beaches of Brazil, "the inland would probably exist quite dry," he warned. Whether or not much of the state would exist farmable would depend on the distribution of lakes and what types of precipitation patterns it experiences — details that the current paper doesn't delve into, just could be investigated in the time to come.

maps of snow and ice distribution on two potential supercontinents

Distribution of snowfall and ice in wintertime and summer on Aurica (left) and Amasia. Credit: Mode et al. 2020

The simulations showed that temperatures were right for liquid water to exist on about threescore% of Amasia's land, as opposed to 99.viii% of Aurica's — a finding that could inform the search for life on other planets. One of the main factors that astronomers look for when scoping out potentially habitable worlds is whether or not liquid water could survive on the planet's surface. When modeling these other worlds, they tend to simulate planets that are either completely covered in oceans, or else whose terrain looks like that of modern-twenty-four hours Earth. The new study, however, shows that it's important to consider land mass arrangements while estimating whether temperatures autumn in the 'habitable' zone between freezing and boiling.

Although it may be x or more years before scientists can ascertain the actual land and body of water distribution on planets in other star systems, the researchers hope that having a larger library of country and sea arrangements for climate modeling could prove useful in estimating the potential habitability of neighboring worlds.

Hannah Davies and Joao Duarte from the University of Lisbon, and Mattias Green from Bangor University in Wales were co-authors on this research.