Effects of a non-rotating Earth

Earth has stopped rotating. Maybe Superman started flying around the Earth backwards to turn back time, but hit a wall of kryptonite just when the Earth stopped rotating. Or Stupendous Man hit the earth so hard that it went from Sunday to Saturday... but also has stopped the earth's rotation. Let's also say that the rotation stopped slowly - not all at once. Slow enough, anyway, so as not to cause city-leveling winds.

Note that the earth is not going around the sun such that the same face of the earth is always facing the sun. I imagine it like a model solar system...say you pinch the earth model between your fingers at its poles, and then while standing in the same position, crank it around the sun. So, a day on earth lasts 12 months. Watching the sunset over the ocean could take you about 3 months.

So what would be some effects of the earth's rotation stopping like this?

First meteorologically: I imagine that the weather would be drastically different...but how so? Would storms be much less violent? More violent? The sun over the ocean would have months and months of virtually uninterrupted time to evaporate the surface water. Would this build the clouds so much that storms are still frequent? What about cloud coverage as a result - would clouds be so thick from that much uninterrupted sun, that they would in effect shade the earth? The Coriolis effect would be almost non-existent, right? This would effectively slow storms and wind from moving along the ocean...but wouldn't they still build? What would such a storm be like when (if) it reached land?

How about land-locked areas? I imagine there would be many more deserts, and really, the most inhabitable places on earth would be close to coastlines. Basically climates seem like they would be quite different...but how?

And then what about the seasons, as we know them? Would seasons still follow the same quarterly pattern, along with the day/year?

What about other geological effects? Plate tectonics: earthquakes, volcanoes, etc? Or the earth's magnetic field...any effect there? Many other geological processes depend on the weather, so I guess this answer depends on the weather question above.

Biologically speaking, how would humans and other organisms survive? I suppose humans are pretty resilient and innovative, so living in the sun for 6 months and in the dark for 6 months, we'd find a way to make it work. But what about other animals? Circadian rhythms would be all messed up.

posted almost 10 years ago

Seth‭

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