EGU21-10524, updated on 04 Mar 2021
https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-10524
EGU General Assembly 2021
© Author(s) 2021. This work is distributed under
the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

Large influence of dust on the Precambrian climate 

Peng Liu1, Yonggang Liu1, Yiran Peng2, Jean-Francois Lamarque3, Mingxing Wang2, and Yongyun Hu1
Peng Liu et al.
  • 1Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, School of Physics, Peking University, Beijing, China
  • 2Department of Earth System Science, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
  • 3National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, USA

On present-day Earth, dust emissions are restricted only to a few desert regions mainly due to the distribution of land vegetation. The atmospheric dust loading is thus relatively small and has a slight cooling effect on the surface climate. For the Precambrian (before ~540 Ma), however, dust emission might be much more widespread since land vegetation was absent. Here, our simulations using an Earth system model (CESM1.2.2) demonstrate that the global dust emission during that time might be an order of magnitude larger than that of the present day, and could have cooled the global climate by ~10 °C. Similarly, the dust deposition in the ocean, an important source of nutrition for the marine ecosystem, was also increased by a factor of ~10. Therefore, dust was a critical component of the early Earth system, and should always be considered when studying the climate and biogeochemistry of the Precambrian.

How to cite: Liu, P., Liu, Y., Peng, Y., Lamarque, J.-F., Wang, M., and Hu, Y.: Large influence of dust on the Precambrian climate , EGU General Assembly 2021, online, 19–30 Apr 2021, EGU21-10524, https://doi.org/10.5194/egusphere-egu21-10524, 2021.

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