Ancient climate change triggered warming that lasted thousands of years

Eurekalert ^ | 1/22/19

[Libloather]

A rapid rise in temperature on ancient Earth triggered a climate response that may have prolonged the warming for many thousands of years, according to scientists.

Their study, published online in Nature Geoscience, provides new evidence of a climate feedback that could explain the long duration of the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), which is considered the best analogue for modern climate change.

The findings also suggest that climate change today could have long-lasting impacts on global temperature even if humans are able to curb greenhouse gas emissions.

"We found evidence for a feedback that occurs with rapid warming that can release even more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere," said Shelby Lyons, a doctoral student in geosciences at Penn State. "This feedback may have extended the PETM climate event for tens or hundreds of thousands of years. We hypothesize this is also something that could occur in the future."

[SunkenCiv]

• Oldest primate fossil rewrites evolutionary break in human lineage [2013]
• Three-toed horses reveal the secret of the Tibetan Plateau uplift [2012]
• Libyan find suggests earlier ancestors came from Asia [2010]
• Giant Magma Blobs Ripple Earth's Surface [2010]
• Ancient Climate-Change Event Puzzles Scientists [2009]
• Mystery mechanism drove global warming 55 million years ago [2009]
• Ancient microbes made giant magnets -- Magnetic fossils show how climate change creates new extremes. [2008]
• Primitive Mouse-Like Creature May Be Ancestral Mother Of Australia's Unusual Pouched Mammals [2008]
• First American Primate Scurried In Through Alaska [2008]
• Volcanic eruptions caused global temperature spike 55 million years ago (Bush's fault?) [2007]
• Fossil Arctic animal tracks point to climate risks (hippopotamus-like creature on an Arctic island) [2007]
• 'Arctic hippo' hints at a once-balmy North Pole [2007]
• Global Warming Of The Future Is Projected By Ancient Carbon Emissions [2006]
• Ancient global warming drove early primates' dispersal [2006]
• Nature Mag: "Inconvenient Truth" for Al Gore: Climate Change is a Natural Occurrence [2006]
• Ancient Climate Studies Suggest Earth On Fast Track To Global Warming [2006]
• Study: Past global warming altered forests [2005]
• New Insight Into Horse Evolution [2005]
• Oldest fossil 'rabbit' unearthed (55 million years ago) [2005]
• Evidence Of Global Warming In The Past Supports Greenhouse Theory [2003]
• Methane And Mini-horses: Fossils Reveal Effects Of Global Warming [2003]

[SunkenCiv]

• Asteroids have been crushing Earth for nearly 300 million years and no one knows why