The lethally hot world
Equatorial seas reach 40°C and the tropics become almost uninhabitable for millions of years.
- When
- Known to
- ± 2 million years
- Era
- Triassic, Mesozoic
Volcanic carbon dioxide keeps the Early Triassic extraordinarily warm — sea surface temperatures in the tropics may have exceeded 40°C, hot enough that fish and most tetrapods abandoned equatorial latitudes entirely. Repeated carbon isotope swings show the carbon cycle lurching for five million years. This prolonged heat, not the eruption itself, is the leading explanation for why recovery took so long.