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As more ice formed, more of the incoming solar radiation was reflected back into space, causing temperatures on Earth to drop. Whether the Earth was a complete solid snowball (completely frozen over), or a slush ball with a thin equatorial band of water still remains debated, but the ice–albedo feedback mechanism remains important for both cases.
Solar radiation is a major driver of the Earth's climate. Changes in solar radiation can affect the temperature and precipitation patterns on Earth. During the Little Ice Age, the amount of solar radiation reaching the Earth's surface was lower than it is today due to an event known as the Maunder Minimum; the most recent Grand Solar Minimum. [8]
The snowball Earth hypothesis was originally devised to explain geological evidence for the apparent presence of glaciers at tropical latitudes. [15] According to modelling, an ice–albedo feedback would result in glacial ice rapidly advancing to the equator once the glaciers spread to within 25° [ 16 ] to 30° [ 17 ] of the equator.
Climate change is accelerating the melting of the world's mountain glaciers, according to a massive new study that found them shrinking more than twice as fast as in the early 2000s. The world's ...
A NASA study revealed a glacier that was one of the fastest-shrinking ice and snow masses on Earth is making an unexpected comeback. Greenland's glacier, named Jakobshavn, was retreating roughly 1 ...
Scientists have looked back in time to reconstruct the past life of Antarctica’s “Doomsday Glacier.” Their findings give an alarming insight into future melting
Radiative forcing is defined in the IPCC Sixth Assessment Report as follows: "The change in the net, downward minus upward, radiative flux (expressed in W/m 2) due to a change in an external driver of climate change, such as a change in the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO 2), the concentration of volcanic aerosols or the output of the Sun." [3]: 2245
Earth's energy budget (or Earth's energy balance) is the balance between the energy that Earth receives from the Sun and the energy the Earth loses back into outer space. Smaller energy sources, such as Earth's internal heat, are taken into consideration, but make a tiny contribution compared to solar energy.