It took the climate 20,000 to 50,000 years to stabilize after the rise in global temperatures of five to eight degrees Celsius 56 million years ago. Climate change today is causing temperatures to rise and is also increasing the likelihood of storms, heavy rain, and flooding — the recent flood disaster in the Ahr valley in Germany is just one such example. What we need to ask ourselves in this connection is how quickly the climate can recover from the warming caused by an increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.