An Early Mass Extinction Event Cooked Our Planet and Erased Most Life

252 million years ago, volcanic eruptions in modern-day Siberia spewed 100 trillion metric tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) into the atmosphere over the span of a million years. This natural disaster, called the “Great Dying,” killed most animals on the planet. New research shows that it also dramatically changed Earth’s ecosystems. An international team of researchers used climate models and plant fossils to link the Great Dying with an 18-degree Fahrenheit rise (10 degrees Celsius) in average global temperatures. Their work, detailed in a study published Tuesday in the journal Frontiers in Earth Science, provides insight on how humanity’s carbon dioxide emissions might dramatically change the planet. The researchers focused on five time periods encompassing parts of the Permian and Triassic periods: the Permian’s Wuchiapingian and Changhsingian, and the Triassic’s Induan, Olenekian, and Anisian. The Great Dying marks the transition from the Permian to the Triassic period, so it’s often ... Read full article.