<
https://theconversation.com/ancient-forests-took-100-000-years-to-recover-from-the-last-global-warming-period-similar-to-today-wyoming-fossils-reveal-what-happened-289462>
"Fifty-six million years ago, Earth’s forests reached a tipping point. They had
grown dense, lush canopies at the start of one of Earth’s most intense episodes
of greenhouse warming. But those canopies began to thin.
As global temperatures rose by as much as 11 degrees Fahrenheit (6 degrees
Celsius), heat and drought put stress on the forests, killing large numbers of
trees. Forest canopies opened, exposing the ground to more sunlight and
altering the movement of water through the landscape.
In southern Wyoming, ferns briefly flourished where relatives of elms, walnuts,
dawn redwood and avocado trees once thrived. Then palms and other warmth-loving
plants spread northward.
In a new study in the journal
Science, my colleagues and I show how those
Wyoming forests lost 60% of their canopy during this period, known as the
Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM, and how it took them well over
100,000 years to recover.
The PETM was Earth’s closest natural analog to the warming the world is
experiencing today, although humans are releasing carbon dioxide roughly 10
times faster than the planet’s natural processes did then.
Understanding what happened to the forests may help humanity recognize similar
thresholds before the planet crosses them again."
Via Kenny Chaffin.
Cheers,
*** Xanni ***
--
mailto:xanni@xanadu.net Andrew Pam
http://xanadu.com.au/ Chief Scientist, Xanadu
https://glasswings.com.au/ Partner, Glass Wings
https://sericyb.com.au/ Manager, Serious Cybernetics
