Climate changes that used to take 30,000 years are now happening in just 100 years. Planet Earth has already experienced periods of increased overheating and excessive amounts of carbon dioxide in the past, sometimes even more extreme than today. For example, 190, 120 and 90 million years ago. However, the difference is that these changes then took place over millennia, while today they are faster than ever.

To understand current climate change and its implications for the oceans, it is useful to examine similar historical events. The researches dealt with the response of organisms, especially marine phytoplankton, to past global warming. It found that while the oceans were resilient in the past, this is no longer the case today. Organisms do not have enough time to adapt to rapid changes.

The biggest concern is the ability of the Earth system to adapt in an extremely short time, which could have fatal consequences for many ecosystems. The average global temperature has already increased by 1-1.5 degrees since pre-industrial times. If we continue at the current rate of CO2 emissions, temperatures could rise by up to 5 degrees by the end of the century and CO2 concentrations in the atmosphere could double. This could lead to the extinction of 10-20 percent of the current biodiversity, as many organisms cannot adapt to an overheated climate.

The marine biosphere, the largest and most complex ecosystem on Earth, is extremely sensitive to ongoing changes. Understanding the impact of warming on marine ecosystems is key to understanding ocean-land dynamics. The ocean is the oldest and largest ecosystem on the planet, and its sediments record climate change over millions of years, long before humans arrived. The Congress "Geology for the Sustainable Management of our Planet" therefore focused on the role of geosciences in disseminating information about current global changes and their future development. (Co2AI)