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Snowball cooling after algal rise

Nature Geoscience volume 8, pages 659–662 (2015)Cite this article

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The Earth underwent two snowball glaciation events between 720 and 635 million years ago. The preceding expansion of eukaryotic algae and a consequent rise in emissions of organic cloud condensation nuclei may have contributed to the dramatic cooling.

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Figure 1: Evolution of eukaryotes and DMSP biosynthesis.
Figure 2: Temperatures before and after the increase in cloud condensation nuclei around 800 Ma.

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Acknowledgements

We thank Z.-X. Li for providing the palaeocontinental reconstructions, S. Petri for preparing input data, M. Richter for help with bioinformatics, J.-B. Raina for insight into DMSP biosynthesis and E. Bauer, A. Eliseev, W. Lucht and A. Weiner for discussions. We thank T. Lenton and A. Voigt for suggestions that improved the manuscript.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Georg Feulner and Hendrik Kienert are at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, PO Box 601203, D–14412 Potsdam, Germany,

    Georg Feulner & Hendrik Kienert

  2. Christian Hallmann is at the Max Planck Institute for Biogeochemistry, PO Box 100164, D–07701 Jena, Germany, and at MARUM – Center for Marine Environmental Sciences, University of Bremen, PO Box 330440, D–28334 Bremen, Germany,

    Christian Hallmann

Authors
  1. Georg Feulner
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  2. Christian Hallmann
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  3. Hendrik Kienert
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Contributions

C.H. and G.F. designed the research; G.F. and H.K. carried out the climate simulations; C.H. analysed DMSP biosynthesis; and G.F. and C.H. wrote the manuscript.

Corresponding authors

Correspondence to Georg Feulner or Christian Hallmann.

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Feulner, G., Hallmann, C. & Kienert, H. Snowball cooling after algal rise. Nature Geosci 8, 659–662 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1038/ngeo2523

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