RIVERSIDE--Geologists at UC Riverside say global warming has happened before, and an event 635 million years ago is similar to the current warming.

Professor Martin Kennedy is the Director of the Global Climate and Environmental Change program at UCR. His research shows that much more extreme things can happen than what has been previously anticipated.

“If we are ever going to see those extreme events, we’re going to see them in our very near future, simply because we are forcing our climate at such a strong rate. We are applying so much CO2 that those are the times we see tipping points and triggers for other dramatic mechanisms of warming”.

He says this is one of the most accelerated rates of change measurable.

Story Date: February 6, 2009