Phanerozoic paleotemperatures: The earth’s changing climate during the last 540 million years

This study provides a comprehensive and quantitative estimate of how global temperatures have changed during the last 540 million years. It combines paleotemperature measurements determined from oxygen isotopes with broader insights obtained from the changing distribution of lithologic indicators of climate, such as coals, evaporites, calcretes, reefs, and bauxite deposits. The waxing and waning of the Earth’s great polar icecaps have been...