Eocene Hyperthermal Event Offers Insight Into Greenhouse Warming

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Print Version (556372 bytes) EOS, TRANSACTIONS AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION, VOL. 87, NO. 17, doi:10.1029/2006EO170002, 2006 Eocene Hyperthermal Event Offers Insight Into Greenhouse Warming Gabriel J. Bowen Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana, USA Timothy J. Bralower Deparment of Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA Margaret L. Delaney Ocean Sciences Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California, USA Gerald R. Dickens Department of Earth Science, Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA Daniel C. Kelly Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison, Wisconsin, USA Paul L. Koch Earth Sciences Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California, USA Lee R. Kump Deparment of Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, Pennsylvania, USA Jin Meng Department of Vertebrate Paleontology, American Museum of Natural History, New York, New York, USA Lisa C. Sloan Earth Sciences Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California, USA Ellen Thomas Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut, USA Scott L. Wing Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, DC, USA James C. Zachos Earth Sciences Department, University of California, Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California, USA Abstract What happens to the Earth's climate, environment, and biota when thousands of gigatons of greenhouse gases are rapidly added to the atmosphere? Modern anthropogenic forcing of atmospheric chemistry promises to provide an experiment in such change that has not been matched since the early Paleogene, more than 50 million years ago (Ma),when catastrophic release of carbon to the atmosphere drove abrupt, transient, hyperthermal events. Research on the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM)—the best documented of these events, which occurred about 55 Ma—has advanced significantly since its discovery 15 years ago. During the PETM, carbon addition to the oceans and atmosphere was of a magnitude similar to that which is anticipated through the 21st century. This event initiated global warming, biotic extinction and migration, and fundamental changes in the carbon and hydrological cycles that transformed the early Paleogene world. Published 25 April 2006. Index Terms: 0428 Biogeosciences: Carbon cycling (4806); 1605 Global Change: Abrupt/rapid climate change (4901, 8408); 1622 Global Change: Earth system modeling (1225). Print Version (556372 bytes) Citation: Bowen, G. J., et al. (2006), Eocene Hyperthermal Event Offers Insight Into Greenhouse Warming, Eos Trans. AGU, 87(17), doi:10.1029/2006EO170002. Copyright 2006 by the American Geophysical Union.

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