"If we continue adding carbon to the atmosphere, we'll very likely create an ice-free planet, with an average temperature of perhaps 80F [26.6 C] instead of the current 58F [14.4C]." The maps show the Black Sea joining up with the Caspian Sea in Europe, while a vast lake is created in the middle of Australia.
It's a free planet, right?
Eschewing baking in favor of fat-free, sugar-free, gluten-free, ice cream-free ice cream?
Humans have already converted about 43 percent of the ice-free land surface of the planet to uses like raising crops and livestock and building cities, the scientists said.
Even though more than half of the planet's ice-free terrain has a slope of 0.6° or less, where water flow is generally languid, a significant part of the world's erosion takes place there, a new study reveals.
Homni now controls three-quarters of Earth's freshwater supplies, has modified more than three-quarters of ice-free land surface, and modulates the planet's air, biodiversity, and oceanic chemistry and biology.
"If we burn all the fossil fuels and put all that CO2 into the atmosphere, we will be sending the planet back to the ice-free state," Hansen said.
That would reshape our coastlines and thereby change the face of our planet (see National Geographic maps for ice-free world).
This period, known as the Eocene, was characterized by an ice-free Earth and an arid climate across most of the planet.
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"In just over 30 years we have altered the way our planet looks from space and soon the north pole may be completely ice-free in summer.
