The terrible transformation that Argentina would suffer if the Earth turned in the opposite direction

About 4500 million years ago, the solar system began to form from the gravitational collapse of a rotating nebula. Previously, this cloud of gas and dust was just one more element of the Milky Way, but the formation of a new planetary system would imply the existence of a single planet, which until now has been the only one known. supports life: ours, the earth

And since then, the Earth turns on itself in the same direction: from west to east, unlike the clock hands if the North Pole is taken into account as a point of view. A feature common to all planets in our solar system, with the exception of Venus and Uranus.

Currently, The Earth rotates at a speed of 1,670 kilometers per hour in a full rotation that lasts almost 24 hours. As the Earth rotates, the thrust and pull of its force shape the ocean currents that, combined with atmospheric wind currents, produce a series of weather conditions around the world. These models are those that, for example, bring abundant rain to moist forests.

But what would happen if the planet slowed down until it stopped, then moved in the opposite direction? This could happen if the Earth were hit by a large asteroid so as not to destroy it.

Scientists from University of Reading in the United Kingdom and the Max Planck Institute of Meteorology in Germany, among others, they asked the same question and presented their studies at the General Assembly of the European Geoscience Union, which was held last year in Austria.

It is a simulation that shows the overall consequences of this new direction in which climate change is mainly highlighted.

According to the researchers, deserts would cover North America, sand dunes would replace the vast expanses of the Amazon rainforest in South America, and lush green landscapes would flourish from Central Africa to the Middle East.

Brazil and Argentina would become the largest deserts on the planet. The southern United States would suffer from a sudden climate change due to the humidity that is now feeding an absolute drought.

Florian Ziemen, co-creator of the simulation and researcher at the Max Planck Institute of Meteorology in Germany, has described this new direction as retrograde.

"The inversion of the rotation of the Earth preserves all the main features of the topography, just like the size, shape and position of the continents and oceans, while creating a completely different set of conditions for the interactions between circulation and topography, "said Ziemen.

This new rotation paved the way for ocean winds and currents to interact in different ways with the continents, generating new climatic conditions around the world, as the researchers said in a summary of the project.

The researchers used the Earth System Model of the Max Planck Institute, which allows to change the relationship of the Earth with the Sun and to reverse the Coriolis effect (An invisible force that pushes against objects that travel on the surface of a rotating planet), to simulate what would happen if the Earth turned around.

With computer models adapted to the new direction of rotation, scientists have observed several changes occurring in the climate system over several thousand years.

The general conclusions were that the Earth would be a greener place. The overall coverage of the desert would be reduced from about 42 million square kilometers to about 31 million square kilometers. Pastures would sprout in more than half of the former desert areas and the plants would emerge to cover the other half. And the vegetation of this world would store more carbon than our present Earth.

"Seeing the Green Sahara in our model has made us think about why we have a desert in the Sahara and why there are none in the retrograde world," Ziemen said. "It is these reflections on the most fundamental issues that fascinate me for the project," he added.

The bad news would undoubtedly be worn by the American continent, especially south of Brazil and Argentinaand the southwestern United States and northern China.

In the model studied, the change in rotation also reversed the configuration of the global winds, which resulted in a new temperature for the subtropics and the mid-latitudes. They also found that the western parts of the continents cooled as the eastern borders warmed and the winters became much colder in northwestern Europe. Ocean currents have also changed direction, heating the eastern limits of the seas and cooling the western seas.

In the simulation, the AMOC (the ocean current responsible for heat transport around the world) has disappeared from the Atlantic Ocean, but a similar (and slightly more powerful) current has emerged in the Pacific, bringing warmth to the east from Russia. It was something unusual, because a previous study that modeled a turning Earth did not see this change, as Ziemen ensured the digital portal Science live

"But as AMOC is the result of many complex interactions in the climate system, there are several reasons for this difference," concluded the expert.