It's no secret that our planet is getting hotter due to heat-trapping carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions, but a new study suggests that current global warming trends could produce a climate not seen in almost half a billion years of Earth's history.
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| Carbon levels not seen in almost half a billion years could send us back to the Triassic period. |
Researchers say that if humanity continues to exploit all available fossil fuels on the planet, by the year 2250 we could be facing levels of atmospheric CO2 not seen since the Triassic period some 200 million years ago – and by 2400, Co2 levels could exceed anything on the geological record.
To gauge how the amount of carbon in the atmosphere has changed over the past 420 million years, researchers led by the University of Southamptonin the UK compiled approximately 1,500 estimates of atmospheric CO2 levels from 112 published studies.
"We cannot directly measure CO2 concentrations from millions of years ago," says geochemist Gavin Foster from the University of Southampton in the UK.
"Instead we rely on indirect 'proxies' in the rock record. In this study, we compiled all the available published data from several different types of proxy to produce a continuous record of ancient CO2 levels.”
Among other things, the analysis shows that while CO2 levels are much lower now than they have been at other, hotter points in Earth's history, they're rising incredibly quickly.
Read the Science Alert story - “If CO2 Emissions Keep Up, Earth Is Headed Back to the Triassic Period – Or Worse.”
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