Earth's Orbit
The Earth orbits the Sun once every year. This orbit is highly regular, but there do exist tiny variations in it that affect the amount of heat received from the Earth by the Sun, and therefore the Earth's climate. These variations occur over tens and hundreds of thousands of years, and are believed to explain the switching of the Earth's climate between Ice Ages and warmer periods. The last Ice Age occurred about 18,000 years ago. Currently the Earth's climate lies in a warm period, but some scientists believe that the next Ice Ages is not too far away.
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• Earth's Orbit
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