The tree saves the planet from freezing

Humans and all living beings are indebted to plants, because thanks to them, the earth has not been covered by ice for the past 26 million years.

About 50 million years ago, the earth was a hot sphere, its poles had no ice. After that, the concentration of CO ₂ in the atmosphere decreases and the temperature of the earth begins to drop. The rise of the Himalaya and Andes mountains about 24 million years ago caused the atmosphere to lose an extra amount of CO2. This situation makes the planet's heat reduction process faster.

When the mountains rise, the rocks shatter and roll down the lands around the mountain. Thanks to trees, they are fixed in the soil. Gradually stone initially decomposed into many minerals. Then these minerals combine with CO ₂ (Photo: Jim Ryce / Rex Features) in the air to form limestone (with the main component of CaCO ₃ ) and many other rocks.

But when the air CO2 concentration falls to a certain level, suddenly the temperature reduction process stops. Something that makes CO ₂ go away. In a recent study, Yale University scientists (USA) discovered the savior of all species. That is the plant.

Yale University expert team uses computer models to simulate the process. They found that when atmospheric CO ₂ concentrations decreased by 0.02%, photosynthetic activity in plants began to decline. In order to continue to exist, plants prevent rocks from turning into carbonate compounds. Because it does not turn into minerals, the original rock cannot take CO2 to form limestone. After a while the amount of CO2 in the air increases again.

'The concentration of CO ₂ in the atmosphere goes down and increases over the past 20 million years. Plants play an important role in preventing the earth from falling into freezing. Until humans entered the industrial age, the amount of new atmospheric CO2 increased continuously, 'said Ken Caldeira, a member of the research team.