All posts from Wednesday, May 31st, 2006

A multinational team of scientists has found evidence of a prehistoric tropical swamp with alligators and ferns in the Arctic:

Scientists have found what might have been the ideal ancient vacation hotspot with a 74-degree Fahrenheit average temperature, alligator ancestors and palm trees. It’s smack in the middle of the Arctic. [...]

What’s troubling is that this hints that future projections for warming, several degrees over the next century, may be on the low end, said study lead author Appy Sluijs of the Institute of Environmental Biology at Utrecht University in the Netherlands.

Also it shows that what happened 55 million years ago was proof that too much carbon dioxide — more than four times current levels — can cause global warming, said another co-author Henk Brinkhuis at Utrecht University.

Also, there’s a theory that a fern called Azolla (still around today) expanded its range southward, sucking down CO2 and returning the climate to present-day conditions… after about a million years.

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