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Climate science

Earth's narrow escape from a big freeze

Nature volume 529, pages 162–163 (2016)Cite this article

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An equation has been derived that allows the timing of the onset of glaciations to be predicted. This confirms that Earth has just missed entering a new glacial period, and is unlikely to enter one for another 50,000 years. See Letter p.200

A subject of much debate is whether atmospheric levels of carbon dioxide were already significantly altered by emissions associated with human activities before the Industrial Revolution in the eighteenth century. One estimate suggests that the atmospheric concentration of CO2 would have been only 240 parts per million (p.p.m.) in an agriculture-free world, rather than 280 p.p.m., as was measured just before the Industrial Revolution1. On page 200 of this issue, Ganopolski et al.2 report modelling studies confirming that we would now be entering an ice age if the concentration had remained at 240 p.p.m. By contrast, they report that glacial inception — the onset of an ice age — could not have occurred at CO2 concentrations that were typical of the eighteenth century.

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Figure 1: An eighteenth-century smokehouse.

Florilegius/Alamy

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  1. Michel Crucifix is at the Université catholique de Louvain, Earth and Life Institute, Louvain-la-Neuve 1348, Belgium.,

    Michel Crucifix

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  1. Michel Crucifix
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Correspondence to Michel Crucifix.

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Crucifix, M. Earth's narrow escape from a big freeze. Nature 529, 162–163 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1038/529162a

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