{"id":133844,"date":"2024-09-13T13:48:24","date_gmt":"2024-09-13T13:48:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/13\/mega-el-ninos-kicked-off-the-worlds-worst-mass-extinction\/"},"modified":"2024-09-13T13:48:24","modified_gmt":"2024-09-13T13:48:24","slug":"mega-el-ninos-kicked-off-the-worlds-worst-mass-extinction","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/news.talkwithrattan.com\/index.php\/2024\/09\/13\/mega-el-ninos-kicked-off-the-worlds-worst-mass-extinction\/","title":{"rendered":"Mega El Ni\u00f1os kicked off the world’s worst mass extinction"},"content":{"rendered":"
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A barrage of intense, wild swings in climate conditions may have fueled the largest mass extinction in Earth\u2019s history. A re-creation of how ancient sea surface temperatures, ocean and atmosphere circulation, and landmasses interacted revealed an Earth plagued by nearly decade-long stints of droughts, wildfires and flooding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Researchers knew that a spike in global temperatures \u2014 triggered by gas emissions from millions of years of enormous volcanic eruptions<\/a> in what is now Siberia \u2014 was the likely culprit behind a mass extinction roughly 252 million years ago (SN: 8\/28\/15<\/em>). But it was the resulting catastrophic \u201cmega El Ni\u00f1os\u201d<\/a> that whiplashed ecosystems, ultimately wiping out some 90 percent of all ocean species and 75 percent of those on land, researchers report in the Sept. 13 Science<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n