Earth

How hot can Earth get? Our planet’s climate history holds clues

A tour through the planet’s past suggests the ways life will survive global warming — or not

Montage of illustrations showing various times in our planet's history, from its fiery origins, through the dawn of life, dinosaurs and, finally, the present day. The final image shows a skyscraper surrounded by rising waters with a silhouette of a black sun on a red sky, indicating the perhaps unprecedented effects of climate change.

Earth’s climate has changed again and again over its more than 4-billion-year history. Humans will determine the next phase of climate change.

Andy Lovell

By Elise Cutts

Our species likes it cold.