Distances in all graphs are measured in Astronomical Units, AU. (1 AU is the earth's separation from the sun.) The orbit graph shown above should appear approximately circular, but the new orbit is more elliptical than the current orbit. The lower section of the new orbit graph shows that the earth will go further from the sun (to 1.11AU at apogee). The upper section shows that it will also approach the sun more closely than it currently does. This closer approach occurs during summer of the Southern Hemisphere. Consequently, summers there will be hotter and the concurrent Northern winters will be milder. During summer of the Northern Hemisphere, the earth will be further from the sun and colder. It may seem strange, but these milder winters and cooler summers in the US and Europe are a terrible curse, as will now be explained.Because the Southern Hemisphere is mainly ocean, the main effect of the increased solar heating in their summers will be to greatly increase evaporation from the southern oceans. Thick clouds will cover most of the earth during this "closer to the sun" part of the new orbit. The mild winters in the Northern Hemisphere and these constantly cloudy skies will produce frequent heavy snows, much like the great snowstorms that now occasionally occur in the late winter or early spring under similar conditions. The accumulated snow will not entirely melt in the cold summers that follow. Each year, more snow will accumulate. As snow and ice accumulate on land, the ocean levels will drop. In approximately one decade, all of the world's ports will be useless - too far from the sea as oceans begin to vacate the continental shelf. This economic disaster is just the beginning of mankind's troubles.
As the snow accumulates, earth's albedo increases and more sunlight is reflected back into space. Thus less snow melts every summer and the region of permanent snow cover moves further south each year. The lower layers of snow turn into ice. These glaciers merge into a continental ice sheet, first in the more northern regions, but by 2025, Washington DC will be buried under approximately 100 feet of accumulated snow and ice. In less than 100 years, Europe and all of the USA, with the possible exception of the southern tip of Florida, will be in the grip of a new ice age.
