For hundreds of millions of years, Earth’s climate has warmed and cooled with natural fluctuations in the level of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere. Over the past century, humans have pushed CO₂ levels to their highest in 2 million years – overtaking natural emissions – mostly by burning fossil fuels, causing ongoing global warming that may make parts of the globe uninhabitable.
What can be done? As Earth scientists, we look to how natural processes have recycled carbon from atmosphere to Earth and back in the past to find possible answers to this question.
Our new research published in Nature, shows how tectonic plates, volcanoes, eroding mountains and seabed sediment have controlled Earth’s climate in the geological past. Harnessing these processes may play a part in maintaining the “Goldilocks” climate our planet has enjoyed.
