Prolonged Late Permian-Early Triassic hyperthermal: failure of climate regulation?

The extreme warmth associated with the mass extinction at the Permian-Triassic boundary was likely produced by a rapid build-up of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere from the eruption and emplacement of the Siberian Traps. In comparison to another hyperthermal event, the Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, the Permian-Triassic event, while leaving a similar carbon isotope record, likely had larger amounts of CO₂ emitted and did not follow the expected time scale of climate recovery. The quantities and rates of CO₂ emission likely exhausted the capacity of the long-term climate regulator associated with silicate weathering. Failure was enhanced by slow rock uplift and high continentality associated with the supercontinental phase of global tectonics at the time of the Siberian Traps eruption.

This article is part of a discussion meeting issue `Hyperthermals: rapid and extreme global warming in our geological past'.