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Palaeoclimate

When the world turned cold

Nature volume 445, pages 607–608 (2007)Cite this article

As massive ice sheets grew on Antarctica during the first major glaciation of the Cenozoic era, the northern continents cooled and dried. The coincidence in timing implies that the cause was global rather than regional.

Given the importance of the early Oligocene event to the evolution of polar climate, it may be surprising that we have an imperfect understanding of its global consequences. In fact, records preserved in the veneer of sedimentary rock that coats the continents suggest a variety of changes in the climate, and in plant and animal communities, during the transition from the warm Eocene world to the cool Oligocene. But owing to inaccuracies in the dating of continental rocks and conflicting results generated using different methodologies, the interpretation of these records has been in question. Moreover, evidence for climate change in the Northern Hemisphere seemed to clash with the prevailing explanation for the cause of Antarctic glaciation in the early Oligocene: the tectonic rifting of Australia and South America from Antarctica, which was argued to have initiated the Antarctic Circumpolar Current and thus climatically isolated Antarctica4. Computer models suggest that such a change in ocean circulation would warm, rather than cool, the northern continents5.

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Figure 1: The Eocene–Oligocene boundary in context.

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  1. Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences, Purdue University, West Lafayette, 47907, Indiana, USA

    Gabriel J. Bowen

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  1. Gabriel J. Bowen
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Bowen, G. When the world turned cold. Nature 445, 607–608 (2007). https://doi.org/10.1038/445607a

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