How Does the Placement of the Continents Affect Global Climate?
According to the theory of plate tectonics, tectonic plates bearing the world’s continents slowly move relative to each other, rearranging them in noticeable ways only over timescales of millions of years. Tectonic plates move about as fast as your fingernails grow. They get pushed around by a phenomenon called seafloor spreading, where the margins of oceanic plates are constantly being subsumed into the mantle, allowing new magma to rush up to fill the cracks forming at the plate’s center. Crevices caused by seafloor spreading extend in one continuous line around the ocean floors of the world. The placement of the continents affects global climate in several ways. The relative arrangement of the continents may regulate the coming and going of major Ice Ages more than solar cycles or any other factor. When there is a continent around the northern or southern polar regions, it is at risk for becoming glaciated and impacting global climate. Especially in the case of Antarctica, which is
