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An illustration of ice age Earth at its glacial maximum. A "greenhouse Earth" is a period during which no continental glaciers exist anywhere on the planet. [6] Additionally, the levels of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases (such as water vapor and methane) are high, and sea surface temperatures (SSTs) range from 28 °C (82.4 °F) in the tropics to 0 °C (32 °F) in the polar regions. [7]
During the PETM, the global mean temperature seems to have risen by as much as 5–8 °C (9–14 °F) to an average temperature as high as 23 °C (73 °F), in contrast to the global average temperature of today at just under 15 °C (60 °F). Geologists and paleontologists think that during much of the Paleocene and early Eocene, the poles were ...
In Earth's atmosphere, carbon dioxide is a trace gas that plays an integral part in the greenhouse effect, carbon cycle, photosynthesis and oceanic carbon cycle. It is one of three main greenhouse gases in the atmosphere of Earth. Water vapor is the primary greenhouse gas, as of 2010, contributing 50% of the greenhouse effect, followed by ...
Keeling Curve. Atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO 2) concentrations from 1958 to 2023. The Keeling Curve is a graph of the accumulation of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere based on continuous measurements taken at the Mauna Loa Observatory on the island of Hawaii from 1958 to the present day. The curve is named for the scientist Charles ...
Ice core data for the past 800,000 years (x-axis values represent "age before 1950", so today's date is on the left side of the graph and older time on the right). Blue curve is temperature, [36] red curve is atmospheric CO 2 concentrations, [37] and brown curve is dust fluxes. [38] [39] Note length of glacial-interglacial cycles averages ...
Hockey stick graphs present the global or hemispherical mean temperature record of the past 500 to 2000 years as shown by quantitative climate reconstructions based on climate proxy records. These reconstructions have consistently shown a slow long term cooling trend changing into relatively rapid warming in the 20th century, with the ...
By the end of the 21st century, temperatures may increase to a level last seen in the mid-Pliocene. This was around 3 million years ago. [28]: 322 At that time, mean global temperatures were about 2–4 °C (3.6–7.2 °F) warmer than pre-industrial temperatures. The global mean sea level was up to 25 metres (82 ft) higher than it is today.
An interglacial period (or alternatively interglacial, interglaciation) is a geological interval of warmer global average temperature lasting thousands of years that separates consecutive glacial periods within an ice age. The current Holocene interglacial began at the end of the Pleistocene, about 11,700 years ago.