Scientists have devised a pair of math equations that better describe how the topography and rock composition of a landscape affects the process by which carbon dioxide is transferred to oceans and eventually buried in Earth's interior. Scientists have long suspected that the so-called the geologic carbon cycle is responsible for Earth's clement and life-friendly conditions because it helps regulate atmospheric concentrations of CO2, a greenhouse gas that acts to trap the sun's heat. This cycle is also thought to have played an important role in slowly thawing the planet during those rare times in the past when temperatures dipped so low that the globe was plunged into a "snowball-Earth" scenario and glaciers blanketed the equator....