Abstract
There is no doubt that the temperature at the surface of the Earth has not varied excessively since the origin of life. Certainly the stability limits of liquid water have not been exceeded. If CO2 is an important greenhouse gas, as is commonly accepted, this means that its level in the atmosphere has not varied enough to cause excessively low temperatures (resulting, e.g., in the complete freezing of the oceans) or excessively high ones (resulting, e.g., in the sterilization of life). There must be processes regulating CO2 that thermostat the earth and that have prevented it from ending up like Mars and Venus.
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Berner, R.A., Berner, E.K. (1997). Silicate Weathering and Climate. In: Ruddiman, W.F. (eds) Tectonic Uplift and Climate Change. Springer, Boston, MA. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-5935-1_15
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4615-5935-1_15
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