doi.org/10.1038/s41467-025-60396-y
Credibility: 989
#Permian
About 252 million years ago, nearly all life on Earth disappeared
This event, known as the Permian-Triassic mass extinction, or the “Great Dying,” was the most devastating of the five major extinction events in the past 539 million years of Earth’s history.
Up to 94 percent of marine species and 70 percent of terrestrial vertebrate families were wiped out.
Tropical forests, which, just as they do today, helped regulate the planet’s temperature by absorbing carbon, were also devastated.
Scientists already knew that this event was triggered by a sudden increase in greenhouse gases, which caused the Earth to warm rapidly and intensely.
But what remained a mystery was why these extremely warm conditions lasted for millions of years.
A new study, published in the journal Nature Communications, has provided the answer: the destruction of tropical forests has “locked” Earth into a hothouse state, confirming that when the planet’s climate passes certain “tipping points,” catastrophic ecological collapse can occur.
A massive eruption
The trigger for the Permian-Triassic extinction was the eruption of enormous amounts of molten rock in what is now Siberia, called the Siberian Traps.
This lava erupted in an area rich in organic matter, such as the remains of plants and animals.
The intense heat melted the surrounding rocks and released large amounts of carbon dioxide (CO”) into the atmosphere over a period that may have lasted between 50,000 and 500,000 years.
This rapid increase in CO? heated the Earth dramatically, and was the main cause of the death of many life forms at the time.
On land, temperatures rose by 6°C to 10°C, too quickly for many species to adapt.
In similar events, the climate usually returns to normal within 100,000 to 1 million years.
But in this case, the “super-greenhouse” conditions, with average temperatures in the tropics exceeding 34°C (about 8°C warmer than today), lasted for about 5 million years.
The study sought to understand why.
Forests disappear
The researchers analyzed fossils of different types of vegetation, including tropical, subtropical, temperate and shrubland forests, from before the extinction to 8 million years after.
They found that rapid warming destroyed vegetation in tropical regions, especially rainforests, reducing the Earth’s ability to absorb carbon through the organic carbon cycle.
Before the extinction, there were many tropical forests and wetlands around the equator, which sequestered large amounts of carbon.
But after the eruptions, these forests were completely destroyed on tropical continents, creating a “coal void” in the geological record that lasted for millions of years.
In their place were small plants called lycopods, only 2 to 20 centimeters tall.
A few larger plants survived in cooler regions, such as near the poles, coastal areas, or mountainous areas.
But even these plants were less efficient at capturing carbon.
This would be like replacing all of today’s tropical forests with sparse vegetation, such as that found in the interior of Australia.
Forests come back
Using current data, the scientists estimated how much carbon different fossil vegetation was able to capture (a process called net primary productivity).
They also used a computer model called SCION to test their ideas.
The results showed that the reduced ability of plants to absorb carbon after the eruptions kept the Earth warm for 5 to 6 million years.
Only when forests began to recover did the carbon cycle start working again, and the Earth began to slowly emerge from the super-hothouse state.
Keeping the climate in balance
Comparing past climate change with today’s is tricky, because in the past, such changes occurred over tens to hundreds of thousands of years, whereas today they occur in decades or centuries.
However, the study shows that life on Earth, while resilient, cannot adapt to drastic changes in short periods without major changes to ecosystems.
In the case of the Permian-Triassic extinction, plants were unable to recover within a period of 1,000 to 10,000 years, leading to a massive extinction.
The study highlights the importance of tropical and subtropical forests in maintaining climate balance.
The loss of these forests could accelerate global warming and act as a dangerous climate tipping point.
Published in 07/06/2025 04h56
Text adapted by AI (Grok) and translated via Google API in the English version. Images from public image libraries or credits in the caption. Information about DOI, author and institution can be found in the body of the article.
Reference article:
Original study:
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