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There is probably more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere today than ever before in the last 3 million years, when the sea level was 20 meters higher, according to one. new study published this week.
Researchers at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) used a computer simulation to determine the last time that the CO2 concentration in the Earth's atmosphere was as high as it is today.
The model showed that low levels of carbon dioxide may have contributed to the onset of glaciations. However, research has shown that humans continuing to burn fossil fuels at current rates would cause global temperatures to rise.
Global average temperatures have never exceeded industrial levels by more than 2 degrees Celsius over the last 3 million years. The study found that temperatures would exceed this limit in the next 50 years if "inaction of current climate policy" persisted.
"Our results imply a high sensitivity of the Earth's system to relatively small variations in atmospheric CO2," said Matteo Willeit, lead author of the PIK study. "As fascinating as it may be, it is also disturbing."
Willeit told CNN that, according to the simulation, CO2 levels should not exceed 280 parts per million (ppm) without human activity. They are currently at 410 ppm and up.
Sea level will also rise by one or two meters in the next 200 years if CO2 levels and temperatures continue to rise, Willeit.
"It seems that we are now pushing our planet of origin beyond the climatic conditions of the whole current geological period, the Quaternary," said Willeit in a statement. "A period that began almost 3 million years ago and saw human civilization begin years ago, so the modern climate change we're seeing is huge, really important, even standards of the history of the Earth ".
CNN noted that previous research suggested that current CO2 levels were the highest since the Pliocene, but Potsdam researchers say their computer simulation is the first of its kind and is more sophisticated than other studies.
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