TY - JOUR

T1 - Toarcian extreme warmth led to tropical cyclone intensification

AU - Krencker, François Nicolas

AU - Bodin, Stéphane

AU - Suan, Guillaume

AU - Heimhofer, Ulrich

AU - Kabiri, Lahcen

AU - Immenhauser, Adrian

N1 - Funding Information: This research was financed by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, project n° BO 3655/1-1 ). L. Henkel, M. Hönig and T. Kothe are thanked for their help during field expeditions and for laboratory work at Bochum. We would like to thank J.A. Wassenburg for fruitful discussions. Analytical work in the isotope laboratories at Bochum were supported by A. Niedermayr.

PY - 2015/9/1

Y1 - 2015/9/1

N2 - Models predict that tropical cyclone intensity should increase on a warming planet. Observing this relationship remains, however, a difficult task since no clear trend is yet emerging from the anthropogenic record. The geological past offers the opportunity to study this relationship by looking at episodes of extreme warmth, such as the Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event (T-OAE, Early Jurassic, ca. 181 Ma). In this study, we document an increase in the occurrence of storm-related deposits during the onset of the T-OAE in the tide-dominated High Atlas Basin of Morocco, associated with a drastic deepening of the mean storm weather wave base. The palaeolatitude of the High Atlas Basin (18° North during the Early Jurassic) rules out winter storms as the driving mechanism behind the formation of these deposits and points to a dramatic intensification of tropical cyclone intensity during the T-OAE global warming. These new results, combined with the previously reported ubiquitous appearance of storm deposits during the T-OAE in tropical seas of the western Tethyan area, support the concept that the globally averaged intensity of tropical cyclones will increase in the coming century due to the anthropogenic climate change.

AB - Models predict that tropical cyclone intensity should increase on a warming planet. Observing this relationship remains, however, a difficult task since no clear trend is yet emerging from the anthropogenic record. The geological past offers the opportunity to study this relationship by looking at episodes of extreme warmth, such as the Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event (T-OAE, Early Jurassic, ca. 181 Ma). In this study, we document an increase in the occurrence of storm-related deposits during the onset of the T-OAE in the tide-dominated High Atlas Basin of Morocco, associated with a drastic deepening of the mean storm weather wave base. The palaeolatitude of the High Atlas Basin (18° North during the Early Jurassic) rules out winter storms as the driving mechanism behind the formation of these deposits and points to a dramatic intensification of tropical cyclone intensity during the T-OAE global warming. These new results, combined with the previously reported ubiquitous appearance of storm deposits during the T-OAE in tropical seas of the western Tethyan area, support the concept that the globally averaged intensity of tropical cyclones will increase in the coming century due to the anthropogenic climate change.

KW - Climatic warming

KW - Early Jurassic

KW - Extreme storms

KW - Hummocky cross-stratification

KW - Toarcian Oceanic Anoxic Event

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84931262762&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - 10.1016/j.epsl.2015.06.003

DO - 10.1016/j.epsl.2015.06.003

M3 - Article

AN - SCOPUS:84931262762

VL - 425

SP - 120

EP - 130

JO - Earth and Planetary Science Letters

JF - Earth and Planetary Science Letters

SN - 0012-821X

ER -