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News and Views
Nature 429, 359-360 (27 May 2004) | doi:10.1038/429359a
Geochemistry: Warm debate on early climate
Timothy W. Lyons1
Abstract
Would Earth's early ocean have been a frozen wasteland had levels of atmospheric methane not been sky high? Maybe. Or maybe, according to a new view of an old idea, the main warming agent was carbon dioxide.
For the first three-and-a-half billion years of Earth's history, the Sun burned only about 70–90% as brightly as it does today. A famous paradox of ancient climate demands that we reconcile the persistence of a life-sustaining liquid ocean with these less-warming rays from a faint young Sun.
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