Exploring the Climates of Earth’s Future Supercontinent with a NASA Supercomputer
December 6, 2021
| Credit | Animation by Hannah Sophia Davies, University of Lisbon, Instituto Dom Luiz. Source: NASA's Center for Climate Simulation |
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Dec. 6, 2021
Scientists from the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS), the University of Lisbon (Portugal), and Bangor University (United Kingdom) used a NASA supercomputer to explore possible scenarios for Earth's supercontinents (large landmasses) and climate 200 and 250 million years into the future.
The team focused on two theoretical future supercontinents that form over millions of years as the underlying tectonic plates (large slabs of solid rock that move under Earth's surface) shift the existing continents:
- Aurica — all continents combine into a single landmass near the equator 250 million years into the future.
- Amasia — Antarctica stays put, but the other continents combine well north of the equator 200 million years into the future.
Get the full story: https://www.nccs.nasa.gov/news-events/nccs-highlights/supercontinent.
Read the related paper: https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2021GC009983.