Study finds out that early Earth may have been prone to deep freezes

Two University of Colorado Boulder researchers who have adapted a three-dimensional, general circulation model of Earth's climate to a time some .8 billion years ago when the sun was significantly fainter than present, think the planet may have been more prone to catastrophic glaciation than previously believed.

Then new 3-d model of the Archean Eon on Earth that lasted from about3.8 billion years to 2.5 billion years ago, incorporates interactions between the atmosphere, ocean, land, ice and hydrological cycles, said CU-Boulder doctoral student Eric Wolf of the atmospheric and oceanic sciences department. Wolf has been using the new climate model, which is based on the Community Earth System Model maintained by the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, in part to solve the "faint young sun paradox" that occurred several billion years ago when the sun's output was only 70% to 80% of that today, but when geologic evidence shows the climate change was as warm or warmer than now.