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An early Cenozoic perspective on greenhouse warming and carbon-cycle dynamics

Nature volume 451, pages 279–283 (2008)Cite this article

Past episodes of greenhouse warming provide insight into the coupling of climate and the carbon cycle and thus may help to predict the consequences of unabated carbon emissions in the future.

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Figure 1: Response to massive carbon input.
Figure 2: Evolution of atmospheric CO2 levels and global climate over the past 65 million years.
Figure 3: Low-resolution marine stable-isotope records of the PETM and the carbon isotope excursion, together with the seafloor sediment CaCO3 record.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. James C. Zachos is in the Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California at Santa Cruz, Santa Cruz, California 95060, USA.,

    James C. Zachos

  2. Gerald R. Dickens is in the Department of Earth Sciences, Rice University, Houston, Texas 77005, USA.,

    Gerald R. Dickens

  3. Richard E. Zeebe is at the School of Ocean and Earth Science and Technology, University of Hawaii at Manoa, 1000 Pope Road, MSB 504, Honolulu, Hawaii 96822, USA.,

    Richard E. Zeebe

Authors
  1. James C. Zachos
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  2. Gerald R. Dickens
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Reprints and permissions information is available at http://npg.nature.com/reprints.

Correspondence should be addressed to J.C.Z. and R.E.Z. (jzachos@es.ucsc.edu; zeebe@hawaii.edu).

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Zachos, J., Dickens, G. & Zeebe, R. An early Cenozoic perspective on greenhouse warming and carbon-cycle dynamics. Nature 451, 279–283 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1038/nature06588

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