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Message: <blockquote data-quote="lgburton" data-source="post: 2342154" data-attributes="member: 30653">it does interact with that idea, but as an opposite - the more polar landmass, the less likely are large ice-caps, since that means MORE equatorial ocean, which helps keep the world warm and wet... well, i did mess up, i should have said a few hundred million, rather than a few billion. forgive the error, please <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f642.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":)" title="Smile    :)"  data-smilie="1"data-shortname=":)" />. though later in the paper it is noted that these episodes are theorized to have occured as many as 2.3 billion years ago, then ceased until about 750 million years ago. summary of points relavent to the conversation:bascially, the more land you have around the equator, the more light and heat are reflected back out into space, so the LESS heat the oceans get.  now, because of the earth's axial tilt, the equator recives the most insolation (ammount of sunlight striking a square foot/meter/whatever) per square (unit of your choice). in fact, equatorial lattitudes get a LOT more insolation that temperate or arctic lattitudes. so, since the oceans on this world soak up the heat and move it around so well, a lot less heat was making it to the poles and temperate lattitudes.  you'll notice in the previous post i made i gave a relative scale for albedo - ice was quite high up there. so, as the temepratures near the poles drop, the ice caps grow, and reflect more of the sunlight that those areas were getting back into space. it turns into a massive feedback loop - until the landmasses at the euqtor are glaciated as well, and you get a giant snowball. the more ice you have, the greater your average planetary albedo (already high because of all the land around the equator), the more light you reflect into space, the more ice you get, and so forth..  later in the paper, it discusses how a high carbon-dioxide buildup (less life to take in co2, and volcanic emissions) would also hit a critical mass, warming the planet very quickly... anyhow, my apologies for not responding in a more timely manner, i have no net access fri-sat <img src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/joypixels/assets/8.0/png/unicode/64/1f641.png" class="smilie smilie--emoji" loading="lazy" width="64" height="64" alt=":(" title="Frown    :("  data-smilie="3"data-shortname=":(" /></blockquote>

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