Earth continues to break global heat records

It makes you wonder: How hot can the Earth get? Is there a theoretically higher average global temperature? Well, in wondered that.

And so Scientific news has launched a project to regularly observe Earth’s climate extremes and answer your questions about how to navigate our changing planet.

First, the extreme heat.

Theoretically, you can get one LOT hotter. Shortly after Earth formed nearly 4.6 billion years ago, the planet was still molten rock, with surface temperatures of perhaps 1,900 C.

Earth’s temperature during the Neoproterozoic era, between about 800 million and 600 million years ago, fluctuated between freezing and boiling, with the average planetary temperature possibly as high as 32 C. There have been similar episodes as hot or nearly as hot on Earth history: 250 million years ago, when Earth had a massive continent called Pangaea; about 92 million years ago, during the Cretaceous Hothouse; about 55 million years ago, during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (SN: 1/11/17; SN: 10/4/06; SN: 5/7/15).

All those times were largely ice-free on Earth, with high sea levels and forested polar regions. Not exactly ideal for humans.

Since pre-industrial times before about 1850, Earth’s average surface temperature has risen by about 1.1 degrees C. The planet, on average, is now as warm as it was 125,000 years ago, at the height of the last interglacial period. say the researchers, based on data collected from ice and sediment cores. At that time, the sea level was also much higher at least seven meters higher than today.

As for the future, much depends on continued greenhouse gas emissions, of course. Under high-emissions scenarios, some climate simulations pushed back to 2500 suggest that the world’s average temperature could be 5 degrees C hotter than currently, but in some places, including the Arctic, these temperatures could be as much as 8 C degrees higher. than today (SN: 19.11.21).

OK, your turn. Bring it on. What are some of your burning questions about Earth’s extreme heat? Well, we do our best to answer. Send us your questions here and see you next week.