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Article: Ancient data and climate sensitivity.(global warming)(Brief article)
- Article from:
- Environment
- Article date:
- January 1, 2007
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2007 Heldref Publications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Global warming 55 million years ago suggests that the Earth's climate is highly sensitive to carbon dioxide, according to research led by Mark Pagani, associate professor of geology and geophysics at Yale University. Scientists have known for years that a massive release of carbon into the atmosphere caused the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) global warming event 55 million years ago. The questions of how much carbon affected temperature and where that carbon came from have remained unanswered.
The geologic record shows that the greenhouse effect resulting from atmospheric carbon heated the planet as a whole by about 9[degrees]F in less than 10,000 years, ...