«[This] study has important global implications, because we know
early plants cooled the climate and increased the oxygen level in the Earth's
atmosphere,» conditions that supported the expansion of
terrestrial animal life, says Tim Lenton, an earth system scientist at the University of Exeter in the United Kingdom who was not involved with the work.
In his
early stage of research, he was involved in the field of the earth's upper
atmosphere like observations of
terrestrial airglow and aurora, as well as the ozone layer.