As a scientist, I'm always cautious of the word 'prove,' but our work demonstrates the important role that atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations play in controlling Earth's temperature, said Emily Joan Judd... We know that today - and in the recent past - CO2 and temperature are directly linked; however, over really long-time scales - like hundreds of millions of years - other influences, such as the fact that the sun is getting progressively brighter, also play a role in modulating climate.
We find a strong relationship between CO2 concentrations and average global temperatures across nearly the whole 485-million-year long record... This was surprising because it suggests that other factors...may have helped balance the impact of the increasing brightness of the sun and implies that atmospheric CO2 concentrations play an even bigger role in regulating Earth's climate than previously thought.
That having been said, I've warned that the paleoclimate record also suggests that climate models might not be capturing very well certain feedbacks [e.g. related to the 'El Nino' phenomenon] that could actually lessen the warming somewhat...higher earth system sensitivity (ESS) is relevant to the current climate policy debate because continued fossil fuel building will el...
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