Lethally Hot Temperatures During the Early Triassic Greenhouse

TLDR

Climate warming is considered a trigger or amplifier of widespread extinction events, including marine anoxia. The study shows that extreme temperatures, reaching ~40 °C at sea surface and likely higher on land, coincided with widespread loss of marine and terrestrial fauna, indicating temperature itself may have driven end‑Permian extinctions. Citation: Sun et al.

Abstract

Too-Hot Times Climate warming has been invoked as a factor contributing to widespread extinction events, acting as a trigger or amplifier for more proximal causes, such as marine anoxia. Sun et al. (p. 366 ; see the Perspective by Bottjer ) present evidence that exceptionally high temperatures themselves may have caused some extinctions during the end-Permian. A rapid temperature rise coincided with a general absence of ichthyofauna in equatorial regions, as well as an absence of many species of marine mammals and calcareous algae, consistent with thermal influences on the marine low latitudes. Sea surface temperatures approached 40°C, which suggests that land temperatures likely fluctuated to even higher values that suppressed terrestrial equatorial plant and animal abundance during most of the Early Triassic.