Earth has its own stabilising mechanism that can keep global temperatures within a steady, habitable range, helping bring climate back from the brink. Scientists have long suspected that silicate weathering plays a major role in regulating the Earth’s carbon cycle. “Silicate weathering” is a geological process by which the slow and steady weathering of silicate rocks involves chemical reactions that ultimately draw carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and into ocean sediments, trapping the gas in rocks, the study explained. The mechanism of silicate weathering could provide a geologically constant force in keeping carbon dioxide – and global temperatures – in check. But there has never been direct evidence for the continual operation of such a feedback, until now, the study said. The results, produced by scientists from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), US, are the first to use actual data to confirm the existence of a stabilising feedback, the mechanism of which is likely silicate weathering, the study, published in the journal Science Advances, said. This stabilising feedback would explain how the Earth has remained habitable through dramatic climate events in the geologic past.
“On the one hand, it’s good because we know that today’s global warming will eventually be cancelled out through this stabilising feedback,” said study author Constantin Arnscheidt. “But on the other hand, it will take hundreds of thousands of years to happen, so not fast enough to solve our present-day issues.” Scientists have previously seen hints of a climate-stabilising effect in the Earth’s carbon cycle – Chemical analyses of ancient rocks have shown that the flux, or the flow, of carbon in and out of Earth’s surface environment has remained relatively balanced, even through dramatic swings in global temperature.
Source: PTI