NOT AGAIN...:

Earth 'shook off' ancient warming (BBC, 2 February, 2004)

UK scientists claim they now know how Earth recovered on its own from a sudden episode of severe global warming at the time of the dinosaurs.

Understanding what happened could help experts plan for the future impact of man-made global warming, experts say.

Rock erosion may have leached chemicals into the sea, where they combined with carbon dioxide, causing levels of the greenhouse gas to fall worldwide. [...]

Over a period of about 150,000 years, the Earth returned to normal and life continued flourishing. How this happened was a mystery, but now scientists from the Open University in Milton Keynes claim to have a possible answer.

"Our new evidence has shown that this warming caused the weathering of rocks on the Earth's surface to rapidly increase by at least 400%," said Dr Anthony Cohen, who led the research.

"This intense rock-weathering effectively put a brake on global warming through chemical reactions that consumed the atmosphere's extra carbon dioxide."

They discovered that the rock had been subjected to high rates of weathering facilitated by warm conditions during the Jurassic hot spell.

So, it looks like: the Old Man of the Mountain died for your sins.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 2, 2004 04:21 PM