Jurassic climate mode governed by ocean gateway

Christoph Korte (), Stephen P. Hesselbo, Clemens V. Ullmann, Gerd Dietl, Micha Ruhl, Günter Schweigert and Nicolas Thibault
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Christoph Korte: University of Copenhagen
Stephen P. Hesselbo: Camborne School of Mines and Environment and Sustainability Institute, University of Exeter
Clemens V. Ullmann: University of Copenhagen
Gerd Dietl: Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart
Micha Ruhl: University of Oxford
Günter Schweigert: Staatliches Museum für Naturkunde Stuttgart
Nicolas Thibault: University of Copenhagen

Nature Communications, 2015, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-7

Abstract: Abstract The Jurassic (∼201–145 Myr ago) was long considered a warm ‘greenhouse’ period; more recently cool, even ‘icehouse’ episodes have been postulated. However, the mechanisms governing transition between so-called Warm Modes and Cool Modes are poorly known. Here we present a new large high-quality oxygen-isotope dataset from an interval that includes previously suggested mode transitions. Our results show an especially abrupt earliest Middle Jurassic (∼174 Ma) mid-latitude cooling of seawater by as much as 10 °C in the north–south Laurasian Seaway, a marine passage that connected the equatorial Tethys Ocean to the Boreal Sea. Coincidence in timing with large-scale regional lithospheric updoming of the North Sea region is striking, and we hypothesize that northward oceanic heat transport was impeded by uplift, triggering Cool Mode conditions more widely. This extreme climate-mode transition provides a counter-example to other Mesozoic transitions linked to quantitative change in atmospheric greenhouse gas content.

Date: 2015
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DOI: 10.1038/ncomms10015

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