The question, what actually triggered the mysterious global warming 55-million-year-ago, has always left scientists pondering on it. Several theories have been published, discussed and debated till date.
They have come up with yet another theory on it. They say that it is the Earth crust’s rifting apart leading to the creation of the northeast Atlantic Ocean that may be blamed for triggering the global warming episode in the past, and not the human-made climate crisis, leading to that of today’s warming.
But, there is a similarity in the origin of both the past and present global warming. Both are thought to have started with fossil fuels, of a sort, though not necessarily coal or oil.
The then global warming-triggering fossil fuel was carbon-rich sediments that were baked in place in the ground. They were believed to have got baked by intrusion of a lot of molten rock and also lot of heat into the landmass, comprising both Europe and Greenland during that period.
This baking process eventually generated at least several hundred giga-tons of greenhouse gases within the ground and exhaled into the atmosphere! — Michael Storey, a geochronologist at Roskilde University Center in Roskilde, Denmark explains.
Supposedly, this was enough for warming the then oceans; knocking over the next climatic domino as well.
Photo Credit: M. Storey, Roskilde University