A world three degrees warmer
The Pliocene runs warmer than the present with higher seas — the last time Earth was like this.
- When
- —
- Duration
- 2.3 million years
- Known to
- ± 300 thousand years
- Era
- Pliocene, Cenozoic
Global average temperature through most of the Pliocene sits about 2 to 3 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial values, and sea level stands roughly 20 metres higher, because the Greenland and West Antarctic ice sheets are small or absent. Continental interiors are wetter, forest reaches further north, and the Arctic supports boreal woodland. Nothing about the geography is unfamiliar — the continents are essentially in their modern positions — which is what makes the Pliocene the most directly usable analogue for a warmed world.