Non-human causes
Rapid non-human causes change, such as meteorite impacts and major volcanic eruptions are rare, but when they do happen they can have catastrophic consequences throughout the Earth system. Some of the non-human causes of change affect the Earth on timescales of tens of thousands to millions of years, such as variation in Earth’s spin, tilt, and orbit, or changes in the distribution of continents and oceans, and do not explain the rapid global changes we are observing today. To learn more about rapid global changes happening today, visit the human causes of change page.
Click the icons below to learn more about the non-human causes of global change. Each page links to related topics on the UGC Infographic.
