Impact of global cooling on Early Cretaceous high pCO2 world during the Weissert Event

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Abstract

The Weissert Event ~133 million years ago marked a profound global cooling that punctuated the Early Cretaceous greenhouse. We present modelling, high-resolution bulk organic carbon isotopes and chronostratigraphically calibrated sea surface temperature (SSTs) based on an organic paleothermometer (the TEX86 proxy), which capture the Weissert Event in the semi-enclosed Weddell Sea basin, offshore Antarctica (paleolatitude ~54 °S; paleowater depth ~500 meters). We document a ~3–4 °C drop in SST coinciding with the Weissert cold end, and converge the Weddell Sea data, climate simulations and available worldwide multi-proxy based temperature data towards one unifying solution providing a best-fit between all lines of evidence. The outcome confirms a 3.0 °C (±1.7 °C) global mean surface cooling across the Weissert Event, which translates into a ~40% drop in atmospheric pCO2 over a period of ~700 thousand years. Consistent with geologic evidence, this pCO2 drop favoured the potential build-up of local polar ice.

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Cavalheiro, L., Wagner, T., Steinig, S., Bottini, C., Dummann, W., Esegbue, O., … Erba, E. (2021). Impact of global cooling on Early Cretaceous high pCO2 world during the Weissert Event. Nature Communications, 12(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-021-25706-0

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