“If it were not for greenhouse gases, Infrared Radiation (heat) would freely escape thru the atmosphere and into space resulting in a planet frozen solid.”
The above statement can be used as an online search request for whenever someone wants to independently gain a better understanding of global warming and cooling. To receive the most pertinent results, use DuckDuckGo privacy browser.
Snowball Earth — In Earth’s early history, global temperatures were very high for a very long time despite the sun being dimmer than it is today. This was due to the ‘greenhouse effect’ being strengthened by very high levels of methane and carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. At this time, no oxygen existed in the atmosphere and only simple anaerobic life forms existed; but, Cyanobacteria evolved and photosynthesis began releasing oxygen which breaks down methane (which is 30x more potent than CO2) into carbon dioxide. The weathering of fresh basaltic surfaces from tectonic plate rifting then drastically reduced the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Eventually, methane and carbon dioxide levels were reduced to such low levels that the Earth’s surface was frozen solid for over a hundred million years.
Search:
‘Cyanobacteria Snowball Earth’
Also:
http://www.snowballearth.org/end.html
Hothouse Earth — Then about 250 million years ago, a “large igneous province” (LIP) in Siberia erupted huge and greatly prolonged volcanic basaltic flows for over two million years and dumped so much CO2 into the biosphere that the oceans acidified and atmospheric temperatures soared causing an extinction event called The Great Dying. Other LIPs occurred later causing CO2 levels and temperatures to again spike and, thus, induce other extinction level events.
Search:
‘large igneous provinces + extinction events’
Also:
https://phys.org/news/2015-10-large-igneous-provinces-linked-extinction.html
Related postings:
https://samslair.blogspot.com/search?q=AGW&max-results=20&by-date=false&m=1
Search:
‘large igneous provinces + extinction events’
Also:
https://phys.org/news/2015-10-large-igneous-provinces-linked-extinction.html
Related postings:
https://samslair.blogspot.com/search?q=AGW&max-results=20&by-date=false&m=1
