Climate change affects ecosystems today, as it has in the past. By exploring past climate change, its magnitude and rapidity, we obtain a basis to understand how future climate change may influence the environment on Jaynus, a planet outside the Solar system. On Jaynus, plants are directly affected by climate and the vegetation changes are important for animals’ diets. If we can discover and understand the linkage between climate and ecosystems history, we will have a better chance of understanding current change and predicting the future of Jaynus.
1 - Climate condition
From the past till the presence, there were changes in the following physical factors:
Changes in the growth of tree: The uprising graph of tree-ring width shows the rapid increase growth of trees on Jaynus. The growth rate of trees was gradual and steady hundreds years ago until 1970. During 1980s, the tree rings had even reached the highest point of its growth (2.5 of the index).
The pictures below are trees that are 900 years old. They are found in forests on Jaynus and according to their appearances and growths; they are healthy with strong trunks and abundant branches of leaves.
Figure 2 Figure 3
Conclusion
Different physical features can help predict the climate change over the past thousand years on Jaynus. I choose to study the tree rings with knowledge of dendrochronology to analyze and to compare the tree growth rates of old and trees of younger generations. After collecting data of tree rings, figure 1 was produced to show the trace of tree growth pattern from time to time over the past centuries. Initially, the growth of the trees had a slow rate in the earlier years, but then the rate has increased constantly. Given that we know trees grow faster in warmer environment, we can prove that there is an increase in temperature on Jaynus as the high temperature causes the rising tree growth rates shown in the physical geologic evidence. Moreover, in the poles of Jaynus, there used to be covered by glacial sheets since the historical Ice Age (figure 3) but the coverage of the ice is no longer the same today (figure 4). The area of the ice in the poles has been shrinking drastically due to the increasing temperature. It is believed that it is the rising temperature that breaks down the massive ice sheets and causes further melting. Therefore, the climate of Jaynus has been going through increasing temperature of the surroundings according to the geological evidences of the glaciers and the tree rings growth. Figure 5: today
2 - Geologic History
Geologic Time Scale of Jaynus
Eon
Era
Period
Million years ago
Characteristics
Homo-sapienoic
Temporaric
Plantuspene
0.005
(5000 years)
- Increase in average global temperature and result in high trees growth rates.
- More vegetation cover found
- New sources of coal as new mines are discovered with layers of fossils are pressurized with the heat from the Jaynus core
- Minerals like silicate, aluminium and magnesium were found
Mineruspene
0.01
(10000 years)
- Vigorous volcanic activities continued to melt ice into mass chunks of water bodies and thus distributed minerals and rocks inland evenly around Jaynus
- Significant geologic features such as landmass and mountains shifted due to vigorous volcanic activities
- Metamorphic rocks found
Medievalic
Aborigioneous
4
- Layers of sand and ice with fossil at the poles formed sedimentary rocks like Shale, Slate and Limestone
- Deposition of minerals (eg. Quartz, Iron) found
Birthaneous
11
- Surface crust of Jaynus formed
- Vigorous tectonic plate activities resulted information of igneous rocks, mountains and massive landmasses.
Relative dating
Relative dating is to help us come up with the geological time scale of Jaynus. Although we are not able to track down the exact date that events happened, we can still acknowledge the placement of each period in the Eon of