Found it! It is the director of the earth's 485 million years of climate change

Recently, typhoons "Connie" and "Ginkgo" have ravaged my country's southeastern coastal areas, causing a sudden drop in temperature, heavy rains, and howling winds, which have instantly brought people in the south who are enjoying a mild climate into another climate environment. The frequent occurrence of extreme weather makes people wonder, what impact will such a large fluctuation in climate have on us? Has the earth's climate in history been so ups and downs and unpredictable?

Historically, dramatic climate change has been the norm

The alternation of hot and cold and temperature fluctuations are the most basic characteristics of climate change. Throughout the 4.6 billion years of Earth's history, the climate has always been changing.

So, what is the state of climate temperature variation in the history of the Earth? Scientists have defined the temperature reconstruction range of the Phanerozoic (the era when living things can be seen) as about 14°C to 26°C based on computer simulations. Recently, scientists from the Smithsonian Institution and the University of Arizona published an important research result in the international journal Science, which further deepened the research conclusions of their predecessors.

This study combines data from geological records with climate models to show a detailed timeline of temperature fluctuations from 485 million years ago to 2024, providing data support for our understanding of ancient climate. In this latest climate temperature curve, the average temperature during this period of Earth's history dropped to about 11°C at the lowest point and soared to about 36°C at the hottest point, indicating that the temperature changes of the Earth during the Phanerozoic were much more dramatic than we previously thought.

Carbon dioxide is a key factor in climate change

The Phanerozoic was a period of drastic climate change and rapid development of biodiversity. The great development of invertebrates in the Ordovician, the Silurian-Devonian biological landing wave, the prosperity of amphibians in the Carboniferous-Permian, the comprehensive development of Mesozoic reptiles and Cenozoic mammals on land, sea and air, all presented a magnificent wave of evolution during this period. At the same time, the Phanerozoic also staged a great biological radiation and mass extinction. These important evolutionary events are closely related to the drastic climate fluctuations.

The new study shows that the climate changed from hot to cold and the temperature fluctuated significantly during the Phanerozoic, further demonstrating that both were powerful drivers of biological evolution. Throughout Earth's history, most of the history of multicellular life was in a climate much warmer than it is today.

The research team integrated and analyzed data from many different sources and types to generate more accurate and reliable meteorological data for the geological period, namely the "data assimilation" model. According to the research results, carbon dioxide is the main controlling factor of global temperature changes throughout the geological period: when the carbon dioxide content is low, the temperature is low; when the carbon dioxide content is high, the temperature becomes high.

The Earth is warming faster than ever before

The results also show that the Earth's climate change and carbon dioxide content have remained relatively consistent over hundreds of millions of years, which provides a crucial historical background for revealing the Earth's historical changes and current climate change. The current average surface temperature of the Earth is 15°C, which is lower than most periods during the Phanerozoic.

However, due to greenhouse gas emissions caused by human activities, the Earth is warming rapidly. Compared with the pre-industrial period, the current global average surface temperature has risen by 1.09℃, and the concentration of greenhouse gases is also at an all-time high. This rate of change even exceeds the fastest warming event in the Phanerozoic period.

Recently, Qin Dahe, an academician of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, also mentioned in a research report that compared with the average climate state, the temperature rise in the polar regions is more significant, reaching 2°C to 3°C. This rapid climate change poses a threat to species around the world and the global ecosystem, and exacerbates the sharp rise in sea levels. We must pay close attention to and observe the Earth's warming situation.

Obviously, tracing the profound trajectory of the Earth's climate history allows us to have a more comprehensive understanding of the Earth's long-term climate change, more accurately grasp the response of Earth's organisms to the greenhouse effect, glimpse the future from the past, and optimize human predictions of future climate change.

(The author Feng Weimin is a researcher at the Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, and the honorary curator of the Nanjing Paleontological Museum)