Identification

Title

Causes and climatic consequences of the impact winter at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary

Abstract

Prolonged periods of low light and cold temperatures at Earth's surface are hypothesized effects of the end-Cretaceous asteroid impact. However, debate remains about the causes and consequences of this "impact winter." We perform simulations of the Chicxulub impact with an Earth system model that can simulate the evolution of extreme aerosol loading to quantify the climatic responses to emissions (soot, sulfur, and dust) associated with the impact winter. We show that all impact winter emissions can drastically reduce surface temperature and precipitation. However, only soot emission from impact-driven firestorms is capable of reducing light to below the photosynthetic threshold for many months. Therefore, our results suggest that widespread fires may have been necessary to produce the observed pattern of marine extinction across the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary. We identify polar coasts and the surrounding open oceans as regions likely to have experienced the least climatic, and biotic, disruption from the impact winter.

Resource type

document

Resource locator

Unique resource identifier

code

https://n2t.org/ark:/85065/d7m048n2

codeSpace

Dataset language

eng

Spatial reference system

code identifying the spatial reference system

Classification of spatial data and services

Topic category

geoscientificInformation

Keywords

Keyword set

keyword value

Text

originating controlled vocabulary

title

Resource Type

reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2016-01-01T00:00:00Z

Geographic location

West bounding longitude

East bounding longitude

North bounding latitude

South bounding latitude

Temporal reference

Temporal extent

Begin position

End position

Dataset reference date

date type

publication

effective date

2020-02-16T00:00:00Z

Frequency of update

Quality and validity

Lineage

Conformity

Data format

name of format

version of format

Constraints related to access and use

Constraint set

Use constraints

Limitations on public access

None

Responsible organisations

Responsible party

contact position

OpenSky Support

organisation name

UCAR/NCAR - Library

full postal address

PO Box 3000

Boulder

80307-3000

email address

opensky@ucar.edu

web address

http://opensky.ucar.edu/

name: homepage

responsible party role

pointOfContact

Metadata on metadata

Metadata point of contact