Published December 9, 1977
| public
Journal Article
Implications of Solar Evolution for the Earth's Early Atmosphere
- Creators
- Newman, Michael J.
- Rood, Robert T.
Abstract
The roughly 25 percent increase in luminosity over the life of the sun shared by many different solar models is shown to be a very general result, independent of the uncertainties suggested by the solar neutrino experiment. Superficially, this leads to a conflict with the climatic history of the earth, and if basic concepts of stellar evolution are not fundamentally in error, compensating effects must have occurred, as first pointed out by Sagan and Mullen. One possible interpretation supported by recent detailed models of the earth's atmosphere is that the greenhouse effect was substantially more important than at present even as recently as 1 billion to 2 billion years ago.
Additional Information
© 1977 American Association for the Advancement of Science. Received 31 May 1977; revised 25 August 1977. We are grateful to W. A. Fowler for bringing the problem to our attention, to R. K. Ulrich, I. W. Roxburgh, and M. H. Hart for helpful discussions, and to R. Davis, G. Verschuur, and R. H. Dicke for pointing out references. This work was supported in part by NSF grant PHY76- 83685.Additional details
- Eprint ID
- 62127
- DOI
- 10.1126/science.198.4321.1035
- Resolver ID
- CaltechAUTHORS:20151116-131947960
- PHY76-83685
- NSF
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2015-11-18Created from EPrint's datestamp field
- Updated
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2021-11-10Created from EPrint's last_modified field