By Over the last 485 million years, Earth has been both a lot colder and a lot hotter than once thought.
A new temperature timeline that combines geologic data with computational simulations reveals a rich, detailed and dramatic picture of the ebb and flow of icehouse and greenhouse conditions on Earth throughout this span of time, which includes most of the Phanerozoic Eon. The timeline shows Earth’s average temperature dropping to as low as 11° Celsius and rising to as high as 36° C, researchers report in the Sept. 20 Science.
