When will the planet start to cool and why?
375716
No one knows. Earth has gone through many climatic cycles. We could be headed for another ice age.
551161
Yeah it's getting very clear it's happening. Now we're going to have to find ways to be more efficient. It won't devour the earth, but it can potentially raise heat and suck in a few cities under water.
1093890
The Earth's atmosphere has some capacity to hold in heat but not much of one. A relatively simple calculation would show that the Earth's surface temperature would drop by a factor of two about every two months if the Sun were shut off. The current mean temperature of the Earth's surface is about 300 Kelvin (K). This means in two months the temperature would drop to 150K, and 75K in four months. To compare, the freezing point of water is 273K. So basically it'd get too cold for us humans within just a few weeks.\n\nhttp://curious.astro.cornell.edu/question.php?number=656\n\nBut as for absolute zero, NASA states "The Earth cannot drop to Absolute Zero because the universe would keep it above 2.7 K. Without the Sun, the only energy to the surface of the Earth is the heat from it's own interior."\n\nhttp://image.gsfc.nasa.gov/poetry/ask/q2895.html
36257
Because it traps the heat from the sun and earth from escaping back into space, thereby making the planet warmer.  It's called the greenhouse affect.  That also causes more clouds and rain and blocking the suns heat making it cooler.....\n\nThere is still much debate as to how much is really caused by us, and how much is natural no matter what.  Our Earth has been everything from a molten planet to a glacier planet in it's 5 billion years, and we have only been recording temperature for about 150 years.  \n\nNobody can say anything for sure, too many variables, all we do know is it has been getting a little warmer the last few decades.  Anyone who says they know for sure why is not being honest with you or themselves.  It's a political issue now, and you know what that means, lies, lies lies.
762828
Jason, that's bullshit.\n\nOur planet doesn't have to rotate at any particular pace to stay in this orbit.\n\nObviously though, if it rotated 20x slower, the days would be 20x longer and the nights would be 20x longer as well.  This would mean that part of the Earth would heat up much more while the other side cooled much more.  As long as we still had an atmosphere like the one we have now, this would probably cause a lot of storms and wind also due to the extreme tempurature differences.
205775
Come on!  Dry Ice!\n\nTemperatures below -78 degrees Farenheit\n\nAnd your planet is Mars, but its water AND carbon dioxide in the polar caps....
282103
Is the book you read "State of Fear"?\n\nYou can debate this all you want, but you wont get anywhere until you define 'global warming.'  I think I wrote a long-winded explanation in another answer, so search for that.\n\nThe long and the short of it is:\n\n1.  The Earth goes through natural warming and cooling, based on a HUGE range of varying natural processes, from changes in orbital paramaters to changes in sea ice thickness in polar regions.  It has done this since there were oceans and an atmosphere, and will always continue.\n\n2.  Humans have influenced certain properties of the atmosphere and hydrosphere that may be contributing to accelerated warming (ozone depletion, increased levels of 'greenhouse' gases, etc).  Since we dont know if the Earth would be warming anyway, we cant definitively say that a current warming trend is related to human influence (but its a good bet).\n\n3.  Global warming trends are difficult to understand.  As a paleoclimatologist, I dont even understand it.  I dont know where the temperature data has been collected, the spatial distribution of the data points, I dont know what the temperatures are being compared to (the Earth has been much warmer at times in the past), I dont know if the scientists who tabulate the data are being influenced by something other than true science, etc.\n\nBottom line is that its a VERY VERY complex problem.  Unfortunately, the more data that are generated, the more complex and vague the answer will become, and the more people will become divided over the interpretation of the data.\n\nIt would be wise to minimize our impact on the climate system (or any Earth system for that matter) as best we can, no matter what the answer is.  The more interesting question is: when will the next 'ice age' begin, if it hasnt already?!?!?
62833
We will be entering the Age of Aquarius, as refered to in the song. This is determined by what constellation corresponds with where the sun rises on the vernal equinox. (We are currently in the Age of Pisces) Who knew that rock musicians were so aware of astronomy?\n\nPrecession changes the time of year when the earth reaches it's perihelion which is the point where the earth is closest to the sun during its orbit around the sun. Presently we reach perihelion on about Jan. 3, which is during northern hemisphere winter. This has an effect on climate and is likely to be increasing the solar warming during winter while reducing it for summer in the northern hemisphere. Eleven thousand years ago the reverse was true. There is no doubt we are in a long term climate cycle that we are just beginning to understand. \n\nI doubt that the effect will be any more remarkable than in any other year. The cycle is so long (~22,000 years) that the rate of change is likely to insignificant. The one factor that is still not well understood is how these changes may create feedback systems in our climate that may not show up until many years after the changes. We will be moving the perihelion in the direction of having it during  the northern fall season, and since it has been about 20,000 years since the earth has had that position we don't have much of an idea how that will affect climate dynamics between the northern and southern hemisphere or if we will continue to see effects that may be delayed reactions to the change of precession over the last 5,500 years.\n\nCheck out the diagram at NOAA:                  Good question!!
187559
I guess it depends if the earth is able to sustain life before we are able to colonize on other planets or star systems.  But yes, if we are just talking about the world only as our planet, yeah, its coming soon.  It sucks.
600459
Global warming is the opposite of global cooling.  The Earth has gone through at least 3 episodes of cooling/warming.  Where I am sitting now was once under about 1000 feet of ice.  The Earth warmed up enough to melt all that ice -- and this was way before there were any cars or industry (or even people).  Global warming is NOT caused by people living their lives and producing things. People may have an effect on the rate, but we are not the CAUSE. BTW, the ozone layer hole, which expands and contracts, has no direct effect on global cooling/warming.
172021
global warming is definitely the answer.  once the polar ice caps melt, the temps will skyrocket.  i expect that this summer will be cool and wet also.  this will continue, more than likely, until the ice caps are gone, then no more moisture, just hot dry temps with no end in sight.
828411
hmm i believe in 2050 or 2020, due to our slow destruction of the Earths atmosphere.
795687
Some planets are too hot for water, some are too cold. The larger planets are made from methane and other gases.
379475
I think we'll screw up the atmosphere, then choke to death.  1000 years later, the Earth will probably fix itself, sans us.
457897
No.  If the planet were on a cooling trend, and stayed that way for a while, it might be heading towards a periodic Ice Age, as it has done in the past.  We would consume a lot more of outr limited energy resources just to keep ourselves warm.  Also, don't worry so much about Global Warming.  As I said before, nature goes through these cycles of warming and cooling.  Yes. humans have an impact, but it is small.
566231
It is mainly from residual heat from when the earth first formed & the breakdown of radioactive elements w/in the earth. Pressure from the overlying material can also create heat.\n\nThe earth is actually cooling but it will take a very long time for it to "completely" cool.
355730
nothing really, since that there was earth 5 billion years b4 humans. so i guess the next 5 billion years( thats when the sun will combust) will be really qiuet!