1. Palaeoecology, Institute of Environmental Biology, Utrecht University, Laboratory of Palaeobotany and Palynology, Budapestlaan 4, 3584 CD Utrecht, The Netherlands
2. Royal Netherlands Institute for Sea Research (NIOZ), Department of Marine Biogeochemistry and Toxicology, PO Box 59, 1790 AB, Den Burg, Texel, The Netherlands
3. Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, PO Box 208109, New Haven, Connecticut 06520, USA
4. Department of Earth Sciences, Utrecht University, Budapestlaan 4, 3584 CD Utrecht, The Netherlands
5. Department of Earth Sciences, Rice University, 6100 Main Street, Houston, Texas 77005, USA
6. Earth and Atmospheric Sciences Department and the Purdue Climate Change Research Center, Purdue University, 550 Stadium Mall Drive, West Lafayette, Indiana 47906, USA
7. Alfred-Wegener-Institute for Polar and Marine Research, Columbusstrasse, 27568 Bremerhaven, Germany
8. Department of Geology and Geochemistry, Stockholm University, Stockholm, SE-106 91, Sweden
9. University of Rhode Island, Bay Campus, Narragansett, Rhode Island 02882, USA
10. *These authors contributed equally to this work
11. Geological Sciences, Brown University, 324 Brook Street, PO Box 1846, Providence, Rhode Island 02912-1846, USA
12. US Geological Survey, Eastern Earth Surface Processes Team, 926A USGS National Center, Reston, Virginia 20192, USA
13. Department de Géologie et Océanographie, Université Bordeaux 1, Avenue des facultés, c/o Bernei Housen, 33405 Talence Cedex, France
14. Department of Geophysics, CEREGE (CNRS)/University of Aix-Marseille 3, BP 80, 13545 Aix-en-Provence Cedex 4, France
15. Department of Geology and Geochemistry, Stockholm University, 106 91 Stockholm, Sweden
16. Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences, Faculty of Science, Yamagata University, 1-4-12 Kojirakawa-machi, Yamagata 990-8560, Japan
17. Department of Earth Sciences, University College London, Gower Street, London WC1E 6BT, UK
18. Graduate School of Oceanography, University of Rhode Island, Narragansett Bay Campus, South Ferry Road, Narragansett, Rhode Island 02882, USA
19. Norwegian Polar Institute, Polar Environmental Center, N-9296 Tromsø, Norway
20. Department of Earth Sciences, Boston University, 685 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, Massachusetts 02215, USA
21. British Geological Survey, Murchison House, West Mains Road, Edinburgh, EH9 3LA, UK
22. Geological Sciences, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan 48109-1063, USA
23. Department of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Graduate School of Sciences, Kyushu University, Hakozaki 6-10-1, Higashi-ku, Fukuoka 812-8581, Japan
24. School of Ocean and Earth Science, University of Southampton, Southampton Oceanography Center, European Way, Southampton SO14 3ZH, UK
25. Department of Geography and Environment, School of Geosciences, University of Aberdeen, Elphinstone Road, Aberdeen AB24 3UF, UK
26. Department of Geology, Paleontology and Geophysics, University of Padova, Via Giotto 1 I-35137 Padova, Italy
27. Institute for Research on Earth Evolution (IFREE), Japan Agency for Marine-Earth Science and Technology (JAMSTEC), Natsushima-cho 2-15, Yokosuka 237-0061, Japan
28. Department of Geology and Environmental Science, MSC 7703, James Madison University, Harrisonburg, Virginia 22807, USA
29. Institute of Life and Environmental Science, University of Tsukuba, Tennoudai 1-1-1, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8572, Japan
30. Institute of Geology and Paleontology, Graduate School of Science, Tohoku University, Aramaki, Aoba, Aoba-ku, Sendai City 980-8578, Japan
31. Institute of Geoscience, National Institute of Advanced Industrial Science, and Technology (Geological Survey of Japan) AIST Tsukuba Central 7, Higashi-1-1-1, Tsukuba, Ibaraki 305-8567, Japan
32. Graduate School of Environmental Earth Science, Hokkaido University, Kita-10, Nishi-5, Kita-ku, Sapporo 060-0810, Japan
33. †A list of authors and affiliations appears at the end of the paper

Correspondence to: Appy Sluijs^1,10Stefan Schouten^2,10 Correspondence and requests for materials should be addressed to A.S. (Email: a.sluijs@bio.uu.nl) or S.S. (Email: schouten@nioz.nl)

The Palaeocene/Eocene thermal maximum, 55 million years ago, was a brief period of widespread, extreme climatic warming^{1, 2, 3}, that was associated with massive atmospheric greenhouse gas input⁴. Although aspects of the resulting environmental changes are well documented at low latitudes, no data were available to quantify simultaneous changes in the Arctic region. Here we identify the Palaeocene/Eocene thermal maximum in a marine sedimentary sequence obtained during the Arctic Coring Expedition⁵. We show that sea surface temperatures near the North Pole increased from 18 °C to over 23 °C during this event. Such warm values imply the absence of ice and thus exclude the influence of ice-albedo feedbacks on this Arctic warming. At the same time, sea level rose while anoxic and euxinic conditions developed in the ocean's bottom waters and photic zone, respectively. Increasing temperature and sea level match expectations based on palaeoclimate model simulations⁶, but the absolute polar temperatures that we derive before, during and after the event are more than 10 °C warmer than those model-predicted. This suggests that higher-than-modern greenhouse gas concentrations must have operated in conjunction with other feedback mechanisms—perhaps polar stratospheric clouds⁷ or hurricane-induced ocean mixing⁸—to amplify early Palaeogene polar temperatures.

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