It is concluded after analysis of the boreprøver that a group of scientists took in the Amundsenhavet outside the Antarctic in February/march 2017.
Researchers picked up a bit of the sea floor in Pine Island Bay. They believe the test is around 90 million years old. It contains information about climate, temperature, precipitation and vegetation, writes CNN.
Boreprøven contains skogsjord, pollen, spores, and even tree roots, shows the analysis.
the Analysis is now published in the latest issue of the esteemed journal Nature.
Warmest in the 140-million-year –
the Cretaceous is a geologic period 145-66 million years ago. The middle part of the period is the warmest on earth in the last 140 million years.
When the temperature in the upper layers of the ocean in the tropics have reached up to 35 degrees. While the sea was more than 100 metres higher than today.
But it is only now they have found evidence of how the conditions were in the Antarctic.
the Analysis shows that the average daytime temperature in Antarctica was about 11 degrees. Today the temperature varies where between minus 10 and minus 60.
Record high CO₂ levels
CO₂ level in the air in the middle Cretaceous was enormously high, one place between 1000 and 1600 ppm, writes the BBC.
today there is in excess of 400 ppm, an increase of around 25 per cent since the 1960s.
– We did not know that the greenhouse-climate in the Cretaceous was so extreme. It shows us what the CO₂ is able to, ” says one of the researchers behind the study, dr Johann Complaints, to the Guardian.
Researchers still do not know what was the reason for the high CO₂ level.
Similar to the current New Zealand
the rain forest in Antarctica should have been a temperate rainforest. These are areas with a lot of rain, coniferous forests, ferns and evergreen deciduous trees.
In Norway is kystgranskogen in the county of Trøndelag and the southern parts of Nordland considered as the most important remaining temperate rain forests in Europe.
According to the researchers reminded the rainforest in the Antarctic, about the one today in New Zealand.
Yet it must have been quite special and not just like something else we know today, when Antarctica is completely dark for four months in the year.
And yes, it was probably the dinosaurs in this rain forest, believe the researchers.
