A hot world with no ice
Carbon dioxide runs many times modern levels, seas are warm and high, and no glaciers exist anywhere.
- When
- Known to
- ± 20 million years
- Era
- Cambrian, Paleozoic
Cambrian climate is a strong greenhouse: atmospheric carbon dioxide is estimated at over ten times present concentrations, tropical seas may have exceeded 40°C, and there is no evidence of polar ice. Sea level is exceptionally high, drowning continental interiors in shallow seas — precisely the warm, broad, shallow habitats in which the explosion of animal life took place.