Abstract

The Earth's climate has constantly evolved and changed throughout its 4.8 billion‐year history. During most of the Earth's history, climate has been characterized as hyperthermal, punctuated by cool periods during the Neoproterozoic, late Ordovician, early Permian, late Jurassic, and from the early Eocene to the present. These broad changes in climate occurred in response to a number of internal and external‐forcing mechanisms, including …