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Image: LiveScience |
If you were to travel back to the age of dinosaurs, it would be unwise to dip your toes in the ocean. Recent research from ancient sediments and fossils has revealed that the tropical waters of the Atlantic Ocean had temperatures ranging from 32 to 41.6 degrees Celsius between 100 million and 84 million years ago.
In the same region today, temperatures now hover around 23.8 to 27.7 degrees Celsius. Water can become quite uncomfortable for most people at around 40 degrees Celsius.
“The ancient temperature levels fall outside the range of what we have previously observed,” said Karen Bice, a paleoclimatologist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution.
During that ancient period, the atmosphere contained significantly more CO2, a substance that acts as a heat trap. However, scientists are still puzzled about what could have caused the oceans to be so intensely hot. Climate models that account for increased CO2 levels fail to produce these results, Bice noted.
T. An
