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Abstract

Tectonics influences the climate, directly and indirectly. It is well known that high mountain ranges of the Earth have a direct effect on the global atmospheric circulation. In addition, the global oceanic circulation – and, thus, the climate – would look very different without the mid-ocean ridges and the passages between the continents. The reverse statement, however, that the climate in turn influences tectonics is not quite so obvious. Only the scientific results in recent decades have been able to verify this. The interplay of finely tuned processes rich in complex feedback and control mechanisms interacting within System Earth shows that a purely meteorological definition of climate, i.e. the mean of 30 years of atmospheric parameters, takes too narrow a view. Climate processes take place on a gigantic spectrum of scales in time and space. In geological time scales the climate plays an important role in tectonics and indirectly even contributes to the distribution and patterns of strong earthquakes at today’s plate margins.