THE WEATHER NETWORK - Scientists may have solved a mystery of how Earth recycles its carbon, and what it could mean for the future.
The general understanding of how Earth's climate is regulated is that it happens through the climate-sensitive reaction of carbon dioxide (CO2) removal by the weathering of silicate rocks on land.
As a result, there is a negative, stabilizing feedback on CO2 that behaves as a planetary climate “thermostat,” so to speak, according to authors of a recent study. But the extreme cooling and "snowball Earth" affairs that were periodic during the Precambrian era (prior to 539 million years ago) indicated there were past instances of the aforementioned moderation process breaking down.
As well, a potential secondary thermostat and an additional, planetary CO2 removal mechanism were alluded to during the times of respite from the far-reaching, organic carbon burial in Earth's history.
“As the planet gets hotter, rocks weather faster and take up more CO2, cooling the planet back down again,” said Andy Ridgwell, University of California, Riverside (UCR) geologist and co-author of the September 2025 study, in a news release.