Journal ArticleDOI
Life at the top of the greenhouse Eocene world--A review of the Eocene flora and vertebrate fauna from Canada's High Arctic
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Early-middle Eocene (ca. 53-38 Ma) sediments of the Eureka Sound Group in Canada's Arctic Archipelago preserve evidence of lush mixed conifer-broadleaf rain forests, inhabited at times by alligators, turtles, and diverse mammals, including primates, tapirs, brontotheres, and hippo-like Coryphodon as mentioned in this paper.Abstract:
Early–middle Eocene (ca. 53–38 Ma) sediments of the Eureka Sound Group in Canada’s Arctic Archipelago preserve evidence of lush mixed conifer-broadleaf rain forests, inhabited at times by alligators, turtles, and diverse mammals, including primates, tapirs, brontotheres, and hippo-like Coryphodon. This biota reflects a greenhouse world, offering a climatic and ecologic deep time analog of a mild ice-free Arctic that may be our best means to predict what is in store for the future Arctic if current climate change goes unchecked. In our review of the early–middle Eocene Arctic flora and vertebrate fauna, we place the Arctic fossil localities in historic, geographic, and stratigraphic context, and we provide an integrated synthesis and discussion of the paleobiology and paleoecology of these Eocene Arctic forests and their vertebrate inhabitants. The abundance and diversity of tapirs and plagiomenids (both rare elements in midlatitude faunas), and the absence of artiodactyls, early horses, and the hyopsodontid “condylarth” Hyopsodus (well represented at midlatitude localities) are peculiar to the Eocene Arctic. The Eocene Arctic macrofloras reveal a forested landscape analogous to the swamp-cypress and broadleaf floodplain forests of the modern southeastern United States. Multiple climate proxies indicate a mild temperate early–middle Eocene Arctic with winter temperatures at or just above freezing and summer temperatures of 20 °C (or higher), and high precipitation. At times, this high precipitation resulted in freshwater discharge into a nearly enclosed Arctic Ocean basin, sufficient to cause surface freshening of the Arctic Ocean, supporting mats of the floating fern Azolla . Fluctuating Arctic Ocean sea level due to freshwater inputs as well as tectonics produced temporary land bridges, allowing land plants and animals to disperse between North America and both Europe and Asia.read more
Citations
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Journal ArticleDOI
A new time tree reveals Earth history’s imprint on the evolution of modern birds
Santiago Claramunt,Joel Cracraft +1 more
TL;DR: P pervasive evidence is found that avian evolution has been influenced by plate tectonics and environmental change, two basic features of Earth’s dynamics.
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State-dependent climate sensitivity in past warm climates and its implications for future climate projections
Rodrigo Caballero,Matthew Huber +1 more
TL;DR: It is found that changes in boundary conditions representative of slow “Earth system” feedbacks play an important role in maintaining elevated early Paleogene temperatures and radiative forcing by carbon dioxide deviates significantly from pure logarithmic behavior at concentrations relevant for simulation of theEarly Paleogene.
Journal ArticleDOI
The Science of Climate Change.
TL;DR: Oppenheimer and Anttila-Hughes as discussed by the authors argue that climate change has the potential to be extremely harmful to children, and they also emphasize the near certainty that the recent warming is caused by human activity.
Journal ArticleDOI
The De Geer, Thulean and Beringia routes: key concepts for understanding early Cenozoic biogeography
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors re-evaluate the specific biogeographical significance of each of the land bridges (Beringia, Thulean and De Geer) in the Northern Hemisphere during the latest Cretaceous-early Cenozoic, showing that the DeGeer and Bering routes did not operate contemporaneously.
Journal ArticleDOI
Hydrological and associated biogeochemical consequences of rapid global warming during the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum
Matthew J. Carmichael,Gordon N. Inglis,Marcus P. S. Badger,B. David A. Naafs,Leila Behrooz,Serginio R. C. Remmelzwaal,Fanny M. Monteiro,Megan Rohrssen,Alexander Farnsworth,Heather L. Buss,Alex Dickson,Paul J. Valdes,Daniel J. Lunt,Richard D. Pancost +13 more
TL;DR: The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) hyperthermal, ~56 million years ago (Ma), is the most dramatic example of abrupt Cenozoic global warming as mentioned in this paper.
References
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Book ChapterDOI
A revised Cenozoic geochronology and chronostratigraphy
TL;DR: Cande and Kent as mentioned in this paper presented a revised (integrated magnetobiochronologic) Cenozoic time scale (IMBTS) based on an assessment and integration of data from several sources.
Journal ArticleDOI
An early Cenozoic perspective on greenhouse warming and carbon-cycle dynamics
TL;DR: Past episodes of greenhouse warming provide insight into the coupling of climate and the carbon cycle and thus may help to predict the consequences of unabated carbon emissions in the future.
Book
Arctic climate impact assessment
TL;DR: The Arctic Climate Impact Assessment (ACIA) as mentioned in this paper is an assessment of the effects of climate change on the Arctic environment and its impacts on the local communities and their livelihoods.
Journal ArticleDOI
Processes and impacts of Arctic amplification: A research synthesis
Mark C. Serreze,Roger G. Barry +1 more
TL;DR: The past decade has seen substantial advances in understanding Arctic amplification, that trends and variability in surface air temperature tend to be larger in the Arctic region than for the Northern Hemisphere or globe as a whole as discussed by the authors.
Journal ArticleDOI
Beyond Predictions: Biodiversity Conservation in a Changing Climate
Terence P. Dawson,Stephen T. Jackson,Joanna Isobel House,Iain Colin Prentice,Iain Colin Prentice,Iain Colin Prentice,Georgina M. Mace +6 more
TL;DR: This work introduces a framework that uses information from different sources to identify vulnerability and to support the design of conservation responses, and reviews the insights that different approaches bring to anticipating and managing the biodiversity consequences of climate change.
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