What’s the hottest the Earth’s ever been?

It is interesting to keep these numbers in mind, but these facts are not sufficient to think correctly about climate.<p>The earth is a dynamic system, and the rate of temperature growth is as much, if not more, important than temperature average here. A car going from 100 to 0 kmph in 15 seconds is definitely not the same as a car going from 100 to 0 kmph in 0.1 seconds in terms of damage.<p>the temperature rises described in the article (e.g. during the eocene) are about a few degrees every few hundreds of thousands of years. Flore and fauna had time to evolve.<p>Today we are talking about 4 degrees in less than a hundred years. That&#x27;s more than thousand times faster.

It is strange why many politicians and countries (Germany included) appear to close their eyes and still promote or work on the 1.5 °C goal, which seems pretty unrealistic at this stage. Maybe it is to calm the public, besides knowing better.<p>Instead, there is a need for more realistic plans to model and prepare for 3°C or 5°C increase of average temperature by 2060 (or 2100). Looking at these bigger swings in temperature, it is more likely that we&#x27;re seeing temperature peaking beyond our expectations than below.

During Hadean geologic eon, when Earth surface was molten and cooled to form the first rocks.<p><a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Hadean" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;en.wikipedia.org&#x2F;wiki&#x2F;Hadean</a>

“For most of the time, global temperatures appear to have been too warm (red portions of line) for persistent polar ice caps. The most recent 50 million years are an exception”

Interesting article, but one thing let it down, it didn&#x27;t give the Celsius equivalent for the temperatures quoted in Fahrenheit, I think it would have been nice to have those in brackets for those who can&#x27;t quite make the mental contortions converting from one to the other. Apart from that quite fascinating to see that life did find a way to exist in temperatures higher then today or in the past.

I often wonder about terraforming (on places like Mars planet).<p>Earth obviously had the leg up on water accumulation during its accretation stage (Hadean period).<p>Perhaps we can start generating oxygen early over there on Mars using a one-step CO2-&gt;O2+C catalyst.<p>This comes to mind: <a href="https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pnas.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;109&#x2F;39&#x2F;15606" rel="nofollow">https:&#x2F;&#x2F;www.pnas.org&#x2F;content&#x2F;109&#x2F;39&#x2F;15606</a>

On the positive side of things, northern cities of the world will likely not be buried under an ice sheet anytime soon.

I like to see stuff like this published that gives some hope that a bit of warming in the next century or two is probably not going to lead to a &quot;we&#x27;re all going to die&quot; situation.

During the age of dinosaurs it was hotter than it is now.

Instead of trying to stop the changes (which is probably impossible), why don’t we focus on adapting to what will inevitably become the new normals.