Abstract
Dissipation of tidal energy causes the Moon to recede from the Earth. The currently measured rate of recession implies that the age of the Lunar orbit is 1500 My old, but the Moon is known to be 4500 My old. Consequently, it has been proposed that tidal energy dissipation was weaker in the Earth's past, but explicit numerical calculations are missing for such long time intervals. Here, for the first time, numerical tidal model simulations linked to climate model output are conducted for a range of paleogeographic configurations over the last 252 My. We find that the present is a poor guide to the past in terms of tidal dissipation: the total dissipation rates for most of the past 252 My were far below present levels. This allows us to quantify the reduced tidal dissipation rates over the most resent fraction of lunar history, and the lower dissipation allows refinement of orbitally-derived age models by inserting a complete additional precession cycle.
Highlights
Induced energy dissipation in the earth and ocean gradually slows the Earth's rotation rate, changes Earth and lunar orbital parameters, and increases the Earth-Moon separation (Darwin, 1899; Munk, 1968)
It has been proposed that tidal energy dissipation was weaker in the Earth's past, but explicit numerical calculations are missing for such long time intervals
A longstanding conundrum exists in the evolution of the Earth-Moon system relating to the present recession rate of the moon and its age: if present day observed dissipation rates are representative of the past, the moon must be younger than
Summary
Induced energy dissipation in the earth and ocean gradually slows the Earth's rotation rate, changes Earth and lunar orbital parameters, and increases the Earth-Moon separation (Darwin, 1899; Munk, 1968). Ma (Hansen, 1982; Sonett, 1996) This does not t the age model of the solar system, putting the age of the moon around 4500 Ma(Hansen, 1982; Sonett, 1996; Walker and Zahnle, 1986; Canup and Asphaug, 2001; Waltham, 2004), and the possibility that the tidal dissipation rates have changed signicantly over long time periods has been proposed (Hansen, 1982; Ooe, 1989; Poliakov, 2005; Green and Huber, 2013; Williams et al, 2014). With the present knowledge of the sensitivity of tidal models to resolution and boundary conditions, e.g., the oceans density structure (Egbert et al, 2004), the results of prior work should be revisited with state-of-the-art knowledge and numerical tools
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