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A review of terrestrial and marine climates in the Cretaceous with implications for modelling the ‘Greenhouse Earth’

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 May 2009

Robert A. Spicer  and
Richard M. Corfield
Robert A. Spicer
Affiliation:
Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PR, U.K.
Richard M. Corfield
Affiliation:
Department of Earth Sciences, University of Oxford, Parks Road, Oxford OX1 3PR, U.K.
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Abstract

From the unique perspective of the geological record, it appears that the ‘Greenhouse Earth’ was a feature of climate for up to 80 % of the last 500 Ma, and that therefore our present glacially dominated climate is an anomaly. The Cretaceous in particular was a time of global warmth, an extreme greenhouse world apparently warmer than our current Earth. The geological record provides perspective and constraints against which the success of climate models can be evaluated. At present there are no ways of evaluating model predictions for the future of our ‘Greenhouse Earth’ until after the event. Retrodicting the past is therefore a very useful way of testing model sensitivity and robustness. The geological record tells us that the characteristics of the Cretaceous greenhouse world were a shallower equator-to-pole temperature gradient, shallow, well-stratified epicontinental seas with a tendency towards periodic dysaerobism, and a well-developed terrestrial flora extending to the high latitudes. Both marine and non-marine data show a global cooling trend throughout Late Cretaceous time, a trend that seems to correlate with declining atmospheric carbon dioxide.

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Geological Magazine , Volume 129 , Issue 2 , March 1992 , pp. 169 - 180
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Copyright © Cambridge University Press 1992

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