{"id":15552,"date":"2017-10-10T04:02:47","date_gmt":"2017-10-10T08:02:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/?p=15552"},"modified":"2017-10-10T04:02:47","modified_gmt":"2017-10-10T08:02:47","slug":"formation-of-coal-almost-turned-our-planet-into-a-snowball","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/formation-of-coal-almost-turned-our-planet-into-a-snowball\/","title":{"rendered":"Formation of coal almost turned our planet into a snowball"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>Press release by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research<\/i><\/p>\n

10\/10\/2017<\/p>\n

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While burning coal today causes Earth to overheat, about 300 million years ago the formation of that same coal brought our planet close to global glaciation. For the first time, scientists show the massive effect in a study published in the renowned Proceedings of the US Academy of Sciences<\/i>. When trees in vast forests died during a time called the Carboniferous and the Permian, the carbon dioxide (CO2<\/small>) they took up from the atmosphere while growing got buried; the plants\u2019 debris over time formed most of the coal that today is used as fossil fuel. Consequently, the CO2 <\/small>concentration in the atmosphere sank drastically and Earth cooled down to a degree it narrowly escaped what scientists call a \u2018snowball state\u2019.<\/b><\/p>\n

\u201cIt is quite an irony that forming the coal that today is a major factor for dangerous global warming once almost lead to global glaciation,\u201d says author Georg Feulner from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research. \u201cHowever, this illustrates the enormous dimension of the coal issue. The amount of CO2<\/small> stored in Earth\u2019s coal reserves was once big enough to push our climate out of balance. When released by burning the coal, the CO2<\/small> is again destabilizing the Earth system.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study examines the sensitivity of the climate in a specific period of Earth\u2019s deep past by using a large ensemble of computer simulations. While some of the changes in temperature at that time can clearly be attributed to how our planet\u2019s axis was tilted and the way it circled the sun, the study reveals the substantial influence of CO2<\/small>concentrations. Estimates based on ancient soils and fossil leaves show that they fluctuated widely and at some point sank to about 100 parts CO2<\/small> per million parts of all gases in the atmosphere, and possibly even lower. The model simulations now reveal that global glaciation occurs below 40 parts per million.<\/p>\n

Burning that same coal dangerously raises greenhouse gas concentration in our atmosphere<\/b><\/p>\n

Today, CO2<\/small> levels in the atmosphere have reached more than 400 parts per million. Carbon dioxide acts as a greenhouse gas: the Sun warms Earth\u2019s surface, but most of the heat radiated by the surface escapes into space; CO2<\/small> and other greenhouse gases hinder part of this heat from escaping, hence warming the planet.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe should definitely keep CO2<\/small> levels in the atmosphere below 450 parts per million to keep our climate stable, and ideally much lower than that. Raising the amount of greenhouse gases beyond that limit means pushing ourselves out of the safe operating space of Earth,\u201d says Feulner. \u201cEarth\u2019s past teaches us that periods of rapid warming were often associated with mass extinction events. This shows that a stable climate is something to appreciate and protect.\u201d<\/p>\n

Article:<\/b> Feulner, G. (2017): Formation of most of our coal brought Earth close to global glaciation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences<\/i> (PNAS) [doi:10.1073\/pnas.1712062114]<\/p>\n

Weblink to the article: <\/b>http:\/\/www.pnas.org\/content\/early\/2017\/10\/03\/1712062114<\/a><\/p>\n

For further information please contact:<\/b>
\nPIK press office
\nPhone: +49 331 288 25 07
\nE-Mail: press@pik-potsdam.de<\/a>
\nTwitter: @PIK_Climate
\n<\/a><\/span>www.pik-potsdam.de<\/a> <\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Press release by the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research 10\/10\/2017 While burning coal today causes Earth to overheat, about 300 million years ago the formation of that same coal brought our planet close...<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1918],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15552","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-ecology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15552","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15552"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15552\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15555,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15552\/revisions\/15555"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15552"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15552"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/pierrejoris.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15552"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}