Climate scientists find it useful to use analogs to put modern day change into historical perspective. No analog is more useful than the Palaeocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum, a period of rapid warming that occurred 56 million years ago when the continents were virtually in the same location as today. During the PETM, temperatures shot up 9 to 16 degrees Fahrenheit over a period of 20,000 years, a result of a massive release of carbon into the ocean and atmosphere. A new study out of Penn State... [Read more]

Rapid increases in greenhouse gases have happened more frequently in the Earth’s history than previously realized, according to a Scripps Institution of Oceanography-led study published last week in the journal Nature. Scientists have studied extensively the the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), about 56 million years ago, a period of rapid global warming that’s associated with a temperature spike on par with expectations for today’s global warming scenarios. But according... [Read more]