A new study released this week indicates that Earth could one day become just like Venus.
Runaway greenhouse is defined as "the phenomenon whereby the earth's atmosphere traps solar radiation, caused by the presence in the atmosphere of gases such as carbon dioxide, water vapor, and methane that allow incoming sunlight to pass through but absorb heat radiated back from the earth's surface" according to TheFreeDictionary.com.
Scientists believe this is what happened to Venus as the planet used to look a lot like Earth.
Venus' atmosphere is composed of 96.5 percent of carbon dioxide, and measures 900 degrees Fahrenheit.
As carbon dioxide warm Earth through the greenhouse effect, more water evaporates from the ocean.
"We could go into the runaway greenhouse today if we could get the planet hot enough to get enough water vapor into the atmosphere," said Colin Goldblatt, a professor of Earth system evolution at the University of Victoria British Columbia, Canada, in his study.
Click here to read the complete study.
Experts have been training computers to gauge each of Earth's water molecules according to National Geographic. The computers are able to calculate at the rate in which they would evaporate into the atmosphere.
"Our estimate is that it would take 30,000 parts per million of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere to make it warm enough to trigger this runaway greenhouse," Goldblatt wrote. "The runaway greenhouse may be much easier to initiate than previously thought."
Many climate experts are not convinced in the theory however.
A huge spike in the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum CO2 sent temperatures soaring approximately 56 million years ago but life and oceans were fine.
"I think you can say we're still safe against the Venus syndrome," says Raymond Pierrehumbert of the University of Chicago according to National Geographic. "If we were going to run away, we'd probably have done it during the PETM."
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