IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/nat/nature/v406y2000i6797d10.1038_35021000.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations over the past 60 million years

Author

Listed:
  • Paul N. Pearson

    (University of Bristol)

  • Martin R. Palmer

    (T. H. Huxley School, Imperial College, RSM Building)

Abstract

Knowledge of the evolution of atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations throughout the Earth's history is important for a reconstruction of the links between climate and radiative forcing of the Earth's surface temperatures. Although atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations in the early Cenozoic era (about 60 Myr ago) are widely believed to have been higher than at present, there is disagreement regarding the exact carbon dioxide levels, the timing of the decline and the mechanisms that are most important for the control of CO2 concentrations over geological timescales. Here we use the boron-isotope ratios of ancient planktonic foraminifer shells to estimate the pH of surface-layer sea water throughout the past 60 million years, which can be used to reconstruct atmospheric CO2 concentrations. We estimate CO2 concentrations of more than 2,000 p.p.m. for the late Palaeocene and earliest Eocene periods (from about 60 to 52 Myr ago), and find an erratic decline between 55 and 40 Myr ago that may have been caused by reduced CO2 outgassing from ocean ridges, volcanoes and metamorphic belts and increased carbon burial. Since the early Miocene (about 24 Myr ago), atmospheric CO2 concentrations appear to have remained below 500 p.p.m. and were more stable than before, although transient intervals of CO2 reduction may have occurred during periods of rapid cooling approximately 15 and 3 Myr ago.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul N. Pearson & Martin R. Palmer, 2000. "Atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations over the past 60 million years," Nature, Nature, vol. 406(6797), pages 695-699, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:406:y:2000:i:6797:d:10.1038_35021000
    DOI: 10.1038/35021000
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/35021000
    File Function: Abstract
    Download Restriction: Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1038/35021000?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Park, Joungho & Hwan Ryu, Kyung & Kim, Chang-Hee & Chul Cho, Won & Kim, MinJoong & Hun Lee, Jae & Cho, Hyun-Seok & Lee, Jay H., 2023. "Green hydrogen to tackle the power curtailment: Meteorological data-based capacity factor and techno-economic analysis," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 340(C).
    2. Bian, Jiang & Wang, Hongchao & Yang, Kairan & Chen, Junwen & Cao, Xuewen, 2022. "Spatial differences in pressure and heat transfer characteristics of CO2 hydrate with dissociation for geological CO2 storage," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 240(C).
    3. Gao, Jingxin & Zhang, Jianing & Song, Jinbo & Cai, Weiguang & Ma, Liangdong, 2024. "Heart moves or action moves? The high temperature arousing the perception for climate warming facilitate to energy savings," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 207(C).
    4. Zeeshan Khan & Muhsin Ali & Dervis Kirikkaleli & Salman Wahab & Zhilun Jiao, 2020. "The impact of technological innovation and public‐private partnership investment on sustainable environment in China: Consumption‐based carbon emissions analysis," Sustainable Development, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(5), pages 1317-1330, September.
    5. Khan, Ali Nawaz & En, Xie & Raza, Muhammad Yousaf & Khan, Naseer Abbas & Ali, Ahsan, 2020. "Sectorial study of technological progress and CO2 emission: Insights from a developing economy," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    6. Sergey Bartsev & Andrey Degermendzhi, 2023. "The Evolutionary Mechanism of Formation of Biosphere Closure," Mathematics, MDPI, vol. 11(14), pages 1-22, July.
    7. Luigi Dallai & Zachary D. Sharp, 2024. "A tipping point in stable isotope composition of Antarctic meteoric waters during Cenozoic glaciation," Nature Communications, Nature, vol. 15(1), pages 1-7, December.
    8. Mark Huntley & Donald Redalje, 2007. "CO 2 Mitigation and Renewable Oil from Photosynthetic Microbes: A New Appraisal," Mitigation and Adaptation Strategies for Global Change, Springer, vol. 12(4), pages 573-608, May.
    9. Gutschick, Vincent P., 2007. "Plant acclimation to elevated CO2—From simple regularities to biogeographic chaos," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 200(3), pages 433-451.
    10. Choi, Sung & Park, Jungjoon & Kang, Yong Tae, 2019. "Experimental investigation on CO2 hydrate formation/dissociation for cold thermal energy harvest and transportation applications," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 242(C), pages 1358-1368.
    11. Chunshan Zhou & Jing Chen & Shaojian Wang, 2018. "Does Migrant Status and Household Registration Matter? Examining the Effects of City Size on Self-Rated Health," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 10(7), pages 1-15, June.
    12. Semenov, D.A., 2008. "Biological contribution to global climate dynamics on a “geological” timescale," Ecological Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 212(1), pages 171-177.
    13. Chen, Chao & Xu, Huifang & Jiang, Qingbin & Lin, Zhan, 2021. "Rational design of silicas with meso-macroporosity as supports for high-performance solid amine CO2 adsorbents," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    14. Wang, Shaojian & Zeng, Jingyuan & Liu, Xiaoping, 2019. "Examining the multiple impacts of technological progress on CO2 emissions in China: A panel quantile regression approach," Renewable and Sustainable Energy Reviews, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 140-150.
    15. Xing, Lei & Shi, Weidong & Su, Huaneng & Xu, Qian & Das, Prodip K. & Mao, Baodong & Scott, Keith, 2019. "Membrane electrode assemblies for PEM fuel cells: A review of functional graded design and optimization," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 177(C), pages 445-464.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:nat:nature:v:406:y:2000:i:6797:d:10.1038_35021000. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.nature.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.