Earth Heating Up Faster than Post Jurassic Period

New scientific evidence suggests that global climate is heating up faster than the era right after the dinosaurs went extinct, and human actions are largely to blame for it.

Technically, we are still in the post-Jurassic period, but it took several million years after the dinosaurs' extinction before the climate radically changed.

Now, the trend is much faster by several orders of magnitude, according to a recent report on the National Geographic website. The rate of atmospheric carbon dumping is at its peak today, much higher than the post-apocalyptic extinction event some 66 million years ago.

A DailyMail report said the rate of carbon release today is 10 times the rate of natural carbon release compared to 66 million years ago. This could be directly correlated to anthropogenic or man-made causes, particularly with the rate of industrialization across nations.

Analysis of geologic record revealed that present carbon emissions are at an all-time high since the dinosaurs roamed the earth. During the post-Jurassic period known as the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM, the geologically recorded global temperature was at its highest over an extended period of time.

It was during the PETM period that a massive release of natural carbon stores from the Earth's oceans and crust occurred. The most likely cause was a series of massive volcanic eruptions. Methane gas release was also likely contributing factor.

Excessive carbon during the PETM period resulted to an increase of 5 degrees Celsius (41 degrees Fahrenheit) in the average global temperature. This was sufficient to trigger widespread droughts, floods, and mass extinctions of vulnerable species.

An article on the Phys.org website noted that although the PETM period marked the largest amount of carbon released into the atmosphere, the rate then was still much slower. It was distributed over several thousands of years.

Based on calculations, we currently release around 37 billion metric tons of carbon dioxide, or CO2, per year. By comparison, only 4 billion metric tons of CO2 per year were released during the PETM period.

Last February was recorded as likely hottest month in thousands of years, as per The Guardian report. With the threat of El Niño and droughts across the globe, we are slowly approaching the 2-degree-Celsius (35.6-degree-Fahrenheit) danger limit agreed during the COP21 meet in Paris in December.