A barrage of intense, wild swings in climate conditions may have fueled the largest mass extinction in Earth’s history. A re-creation of how ancient sea surface temperatures, ocean and atmosphere circulation, and landmasses interacted revealed an Earth plagued by nearly decade-long stints of droughts, wildfires and flooding.
Researchers knew that a spike in global temperatures — triggered by gas emissions from millions of years of enormous volcanic eruptions in what is now Siberia — was the likely culprit behind a mass extinction roughly 252 million years ago (SN: 8/28/15). But it was the resulting catastrophic “mega El Niños” that whiplashed ecosystems, ultimately wiping out some 90 percent of all
→ Continue reading at Science News