AI Article Synopsis
- Understanding ancient climate changes is challenging because it's tough to separate ocean temperature trends from changes in ice volume.
- Researchers used a method called carbonate "clumped" isotope paleothermometry to determine ocean temperatures and estimate ice volumes during the Late Ordovician-Early Silurian glaciation.
- They discovered that tropical ocean temperatures ranged from 32° to 37°C, with a brief cooling period of about 5°C, and noted that this cooling occurred during a time when ice volumes may have been as large as those from the last Pleistocene glacial maximum, linking it to significant shifts in the carbon cycle and the Late Ordovician mass extinction.
Article Abstract
Understanding ancient climate changes is hampered by the inability to disentangle trends in ocean temperature from trends in continental ice volume. We used carbonate "clumped" isotope paleothermometry to constrain ocean temperatures, and thereby estimate ice volumes, through the Late Ordovician-Early Silurian glaciation. We find tropical ocean temperatures of 32° to 37°C except for short-lived cooling by ~5°C during the final Ordovician stage. Evidence for ice sheets spans much of the study interval, but the cooling pulse coincided with a glacial maximum during which ice volumes likely equaled or exceeded those of the last (Pleistocene) glacial maximum. This cooling also coincided with a large perturbation of the carbon cycle and the Late Ordovician mass extinction.
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| http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/science.1200803 | DOI Listing |
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