Earth’s climate through time
"The Blue Marble" is a famous photograph of the Earth taken on December 7, 1972, by the crew of the Apollo 17 spacecraft en route to the Moon at a distance of about 29,000 kilometres (18,000 mi). It shows Africa, Antarctica, and the Arabian Peninsula.
dinosaurs
mammoths
Geologic Time Scale
Late Precambrian ice ages
Cambrian explosion
Late Precambrian ice age
Cambrian explosion
Cambrian explosion
Cambrian explosion
Cambrian explosion
Cambrian explosion
Ordovician
Devonian/Carboniferous
Phanerozoic CO2
Permo-Carboniferous ice age
Permian
Mesozoic - Age of the Dinosaurs
Triassic
Jurassic
Cretaceous
Cretaceous
Cretaceous
Cenozoic cooling
Cenozoic cooling
Eocene
Miocene
Key factors
Radiative forcing • solar variability
Greenhouse forcing • carbon dioxide
• water vapor
Tectonic forcing • position & size of continents
• mountain building • ocean circulation
CO2 - temp
Plio-Pleistocene
onset of northern hemisphere glaciation
100,000 year world
41,000 year world
Plio-Pleistocene
Vostok CO2
Northern hemisphere ice sheets at the last glacial
maximum (LGM)
global temperature was 6˚C lower
sea level was 120 m lower
sea level
120 meters lower at the LGM (20,000
year ago)
mammoths
