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Eos | Eos Transactions, American Geophysical Union

 

Index Terms

  • Biogeosciences: Carbon cycling (4806)
  • Global Change: Abrupt/rapid climate change (4901, 8408)
  • Global Change: Earth system modeling (1225)

Abstract

EOS, TRANSACTIONS AMERICAN GEOPHYSICAL UNION, VOL. 87, NO. 17, PAGE 165, 2006
doi:10.1029/2006EO170002

FEATURE

Eocene hyperthermal event offers insight into greenhouse warming

Gabriel J. Bowen

Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana

Timothy J. Bralower

Department of Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University (PSU), University Park

Margareth L. Delaney

Ocean Sciences Department, University of California, Santa Cruz (UCSC)

Gerald R. Dickens

Department of Earth Science, Rice University, Houston, Texas

Daniel C. Kelly

Department of Geology and Geophysics, University of Wisconsin-Madison

Paul L. Koch

Earth Sciences Department, UCSC

Lee R. Kump

Department of Geosciences, Pennsylvania State University (PSU), University Park

Jin Meng

Department of Vertebrate Paleontology American Museum of Natural History, New York, N.Y.

Lisa C. Sloan

Earth Sciences Department, UCSC

Ellen Thomas

Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut

Scott L. Wing

Department of Paleobiology, National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C.

James C. Zachos

Earth Sciences Department, UCSC

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.

Citation: Bowen, G. J., et al. (2006), Eocene hyperthermal event offers insight into greenhouse warming, Eos Trans. AGU, 87(17), 165, doi:10.1029/2006EO170002.

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