A new collaborative study showcases a comprehensive temperature curve covering 485 million years, detailing greater historical climate variability and its connection to carbon dioxide levels, emphasizing the accelerated pace and risks of current climate change. Researchers from the Smithsonian and the University of Arizona have developed the most detailed temperature curve of Earth over the past 485 million years, revealing significant fluctuations and a strong correlation between carbon dioxide levels and global temperatures. This new understanding underscores the unique rate of modern anthropogenic warming, posing risks to global ecosystems and sea levels. A new study co-led by the Smithsonian and the University of Arizona offers the most detailed glimpse yet of how Earth’s surface temperature has changed over the past 485 million years. In a paper published on September 19, in the journal Science , a team of researchers, including paleobiologists Scott Wing and Brian Huber from the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History , produce a curve of global mean surface temperature (GMST) across deep time—the Earth’s ancient past stretching over many millions of years. The new curve reveals that Earth’s temperature has varied more than previously thought over much of the Phanerozoic Eon, the past 540 million years of geologic time when life has diversified, populated land and endured multiple mass extinctions. The curve also confirms that Earth’s temperature is strongly correlated to the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. A new study co-led by the Smithsonian and the University of Arizona offers the most detailed glimpse yet of how Earth’s surface temperature has changed over the past 485 million years. In a paper published in the journal Science, a team of researchers produce a curve of global mean surface temperature across deep time—the Earth’s ancient past stretching over many millions of years. Credit: Lucia RM […]