Photochemical consequences of enhanced CO2 levels in earth's early atmosphere

Greatly enhanced atmospheric CO2 concentrations are the most likely mechanism for offsetting the effects of reduced solar luminosity early in the earth's history. CO2 levels of 80 to 600 times the present value could have maintained a mean surface temperature of 0 C to 15 C, given a 25 percent decrease in solar output. Such high CO2 levels are at least qualitatively consistent with the present understanding of the carbonate-silicate geochemical cycle. The presence of large amounts of CO2 has important implications for the composition of the earth's prebiotic atmosphere. The hydrogen budget of a high-CO2 primitive atmosphere would have been strongly influenced by rainout of H2O2 and H2CO. The reaction of H2O2 with dissolved ferrous iron in the early oceans could have been a major sink for atmospheric oxygen. The requirement that this loss of oxygen be balanced by a corresponding loss of hydrogen (by escape to space and rainout of H2CO) implies that the atmospheric H2 mixing ratio was greater than 2 x 10 to the -5th and the ground level O2 mixing ratio was below 10 to the -12th, even if other surface sources of H2 were small. These results are only weakly dependent on changes in solar UV flux, rainout rates, and vertical mixing rates in the primitive atmosphere.