Humans have never before lived with the high carbon dioxide atmospheric conditions that have become the norm on Earth in the last 60 years, according to a new study that includes a Texas A&M University researcher.
Titled “Low CO2 levels of the entire Pleistocene Epoch” and published in Nature Communications today, the study shows that for the entire 2.5 million years of the Pleistocene era, carbon dioxide concentrations averaged 230 parts per million. Today’s levels, by comparison, are more than 410 parts per million. In 1965, Earth’s carbon dioxide atmospheric concentrations exceeded 320 parts per million, a high point never reached in the past 2.5 million years, the study shows.
“According to this research, from the first Homo erectus, which is currently dated to 2.1 to1.8 million years ago, until 1965, we have lived in a low-carbon dioxide environment — concentrations were less than 320 parts per million,” said Yige Zhang, a co-author of the research study and an assistant professor in the Department of Oceanography in the College of Geosciences. “So this current high-carbon dioxide environment is not only an experiment for the climate and the environment — it’s also an experiment for us, for ourselves.”
Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas that contributes to the warming of Earth’s atmosphere, and is considered a driver of global climate change, Zhang said.
Read more at Texas A&M University
Photo Credit: 黄河山曲 via Wikimedia Commons
