Looking at prehistoric climatic change may provide new insights into predicted near-future climate. New results for a greenhouse effect that occurred during the late Cretaceous some 75-90 million years ago suggest that very different mechanisms controlled the climate then and that these may be applicable in the near future, perhaps forcing a revision of received wisdom regarding climate change.
Sascha Floegel and colleagues at the IFM-GEOMAR in Kiel, Germany working with Thomas Wagner of the University of Newcastle upon Tyne, England, have investigated the causal relationships and feedback loops between the tropics and higher latitudes and have identified a “climate kitchen” in a world with an average global temperature between five and 9 degree Celsius higher than today.
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