Warm past points to sea level rises »

Scientists have for the first time constructed a detailed record of carbon dioxide fluctuations from the Pliocene epoch, around three million years ago, when the Earth was most recently warmer than today. The team of scientists from the UK and Australia used the new data to estimate the sensitivity of climate to increasing levels of carbon dioxide. Co-author Professor Eelco Rohling from the Research School of Earth Sciences at The Australian National University (ANU) said the pattern supports the predictions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) for a warmer world, and points to sea level rises in the tens of metres. "We have needed more data for warmer periods, and now we have it," he said. "We are headed towards a climate like the Pliocene, where there is a mean warming of around 2.5 to 3 degrees. "The scary bit is that Pliocene sea level stood at least nine meters higher than today, as we found in previous studies. Our current study finds that modern climate is as sensitive to carbon dioxide change as the Pliocene climate.