Study: Jupiter and Venus orbits affect our climate

Who knew? The orbits of planets hundreds of millions of miles away can change weather patterns here on Earth.

Every 405,000 years, gravitational tugs from the planets Jupiter and Venus gradually affect Earth’s climate and life forms, according to a new study published Monday.

This pattern has been going on for at least 215 million years and allows scientists to more precisely date geological events like the spread of dinosaurs.

“Scientists can now link changes in the climate, environment, dinosaurs, mammals and fossils around the world to this 405,000-year cycle in a very precise way,” said study lead author Dennis Kent, an expert in paleomagnetism at Columbia University’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory and Rutgers University.

The cycle has been happening for hundreds of millions of years, from before the rise of dinosaurs, and is still active today, scientists say.

“The climate cycles are directly related to how the Earth orbits the sun and slight variations in sunlight reaching Earth lead to climate and ecological changes,” said Kent, who studies

Earth’s magnetic field.

Jupiter and Venus are such strong influences because of their size and proximity. Venus is the nearest planet to us — at its farthest, only about 162 million miles — and roughly similar in mass. Jupiter is much farther away, but is the Solar System’s largest planet.

The study says that every 405,000 years, due to wobbles in our orbit caused by the gravitational pulls of the two planets, seasonal differences on Earth become more intense. Summers are hotter and winters colder; dry times drier, wet times wetter.