I know what exactly will happen if the earth stops rotating all of a sudden – the momentum would cause untold destruction and everything not securely anchored to the ground would be hurled eastward at devastating speeds. I’ve seen a shittona clickbaity videos on YouTube. I also know the final result of this would be 6 months of daytime and 6 months of night. But what would be the other visible effects on earth which would start as soon the deceleration begins? Will we be able to survive?
In: Planetary Science
The trade winds probably slow down. Hot places will become much hotter, cold places much colder. The weather pattern changes fairly quickly since the cooling and heating cycles change. Wet places might become much wetter and dry places much drier. Since many river systems depend on snow accumulation and precipitations in higher altitudes, they might fail too. Rivers run dry or with much less water. Many areas will see plant and animals dying off.
Humans might initially cope but probably not very well or for very long. Many areas without water will also see either mass migration or mass human life extinction. If the final outcome is a tidally locked earth to the sun (ie one side facing the sun permanently), then there will only be a very narrow band where temperatures are reasonable – one side being cold and the other super hot. It is unlikely that any humans survive by then unless we start living permanently underground as there might very well be very vicious winds and weather caused by the heating and cooling. We’d certainly need some kind of super structure built to withstand the weather and to possibly maintain the minimal amount of agriculture needed to grow food.
Of course without much plant life, the oxygen and carbon dioxide levels will also dramatically shift meaning whatever artificial environment created would need to be able to manage this as well. And without rotation, the protective magnetic field of the earth is gone – meaning we’d have to make shelter that shields us from cosmic and solar radiations. After a while, even the atmosphere might be stripped from earth due to this radiation. At that point humans are probably gone.
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