Global Glaciation Hypothesis May Be Proven False

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2011/10/111012083450.htm

It's used to be almost proven that there used to be a period of global glaciation. Since it was not completely proven it was a hypothesis that went by the name of the "snowball hypothesis," and was created almost 20 years ago. It was estimated that about 635 million years ago during the Cryogenian period, the Earth was almost entirely covered with ice. Since less heat would remain on the Earth due to the reflection by ice, scientists hypothesized that carbon dioxide remained in the atmosphere from volcanic eruptions. But when looking at the data from this time period, a small amount of carbon dioxide was found in the atmosphere. This shows that it may not have been able to heat up the Earth enough to melt the ice, so this period may not have occurred. In the meantime scientists try to figure out if there may have been another gas that could have caused melting of glaciers, such as methane. With a possibility of such a well proven hypothesis being proven false truly shows how our scientists experience paradigm shifts with these theories. As much as we may believe that we know everything there is to know about our world, there are so many more mysteries and what we believe to be true, may not actually be true.