Ricerc@Sapienza

Is the westerly rotation of the lithosphere an ephemeral accidental recent phenomenon or is it a stable
process of Earth’s geodynamics? The reason why the tidal drag has been questioned as the mechanism
determining the lithospheric shift relative to the underlying mantle is the apparent too high viscosity of
the asthenosphere. However, plate boundaries asymmetries are a robust indication of the ‘westerly’
decoupling of the entire Earth’s outer lithospheric shell and new studies support lower viscosities in the

This study provides a unique procedure for validating and reconstructing temperature and precipitation data. Although developed from data in Middle Italy, the validation method is intended to be universal, subject to appropriate calibration according to the climate zones analysed. This research is an attempt to create shared applicative procedures that are most of the time only theorized or included in some software without a clear definition of the methods.