What would happen if the Earth axis was changed suddenly to 25 degrees (instead of the current 23.4)? And to 75 degrees?
What? Earth tilt is going to change? Horrible! Earth tilt is what gives us four seasons. It also divides Earth into three zones: Temperate, Tropical and Arctic. Changing the tilt may mess up the zones and seasons, or worse, our Earth may be deemed uninhabitable. The tilt drifting from 23.4° to 25° may seem small, but Tropic of Cancer is pushed northward and Arctic Circle southward, both by about 100 miles. Both the Tropic and Arctic zones expand 100 miles. The Temperate shrinks by 200 miles. Imagine what hoopla may cause the countries covered by those 200 miles. I guarantee it will be a much bigger issue than the global warming we deal with now. If the tilt is changed to 75°, the Earth spin will be only 15° from being horizontal. Earth no longer looks like a spinning top, but more like a rolling ball. (In the picture, the North Pole becomes the East Pole when the tilt is 75°, faces the sun for half a year, and is extraordinarily hot. For the second half of a year, it is extremely cold.) Sun rises on the south and sets on the north. How is that for a change? What used to be a North/South Pole is now a West/East Pole. This name switch doesn’t seem serious but it’s a recipe for disasters. All living beings will be topsy-turvy. Tropic of Cancer is moved to the north of the current Arctic Circle and Arctic Circle south to the current Tropic of Cancer. What’s in-between the two lines is no longer temperate. The sun will hang on high in the sky forever for half a year and disappear for another half a year. The Temperate zone is gone. Only the equator area may be mild if our Earth still spins at the same rate, once a day. What about the two Poles? They become frozen in winters (it’s OK) and hell-hot in summers (not OK). You see, when the sun is on call 24 hours a day for half a year, oceans get boiled up. In a few hundred years, the water either stays as vapor in the air or is totally out of Earth. Ah, pretty soon, we won’t have water to irrigate our land anymore. Lives, if there were any, become sporadic and can only hide in dark places near Equator where they may find some precious underground water. It’s exactly the moment we can use religions. All, kneel down and pray that this tilt change is not going to happen.
Does the earth's axis of rotation change? If yes how?
Yes, the axis does change in two senses. First, the direction in which the axis points changes with time as a result of precession. It also changes as the earth changes shape as after the recent huge quake in Japan. That quake moved the axis by about four inches. To answer your question about seasons, a good way to see this is to hold up a ball, mark a point at one end to represent the north pole, and then tip the ball so that the mark is about 20 degrees from straight up. Then move the tipped ball around the light bulb as though it were the earth orbiting the sun.
Which of the following statements pertaining to global warming to you agree with and why?
I'm trying to get an understanding as to what reasons people are 'skeptical' of anthropogenic global warming. Which of the following statements to you agree with and why? 1) We don't have sufficiently good data to even know if the planet is warming to begin with. 2) Global temperature changes are mainly caused by natural cycles which we don't understand, including over the past 50 years. 3) Global temperature changes are mainly caused by changes in solar activity, including over the past 50 years. 4) Global warming has stopped, therefore it's nothing to be concerned about. 5) Warming of several more degrees would be beneficial to humans. 6) The climate isn't very sensitive to changes in atmospheric CO2, so even though humans are the primary cause of the current global warming, it's nothing to worry about because the planet won't warm very much in the future. 7) Climate scientists as a whole are so dishonest that I just don't know what to believe. 8) I'm going to die before global warming is a major problem anyway, so I don't really care. If you feel that none of the above statements are true, or want to provide another explanation please do so.