🌡️ MESOZOIC CLIMATE: A HOT, HOT WORLD
PAGE 1 OF 5 — A WORLD WITHOUT ICE
252–66 MA
THE WORLD WAS A HOTHOUSE
For the entire 186 million years that dinosaurs ruled, Earth was a greenhouse world, on average about 10°C warmer than today. There were no permanent polar ice caps at all. Palm-like plants and ferns grew near both poles, and the difference in temperature between the equator and the poles was far gentler than it is now. A dinosaur could have walked from the tropics to the South Pole and never seen snow.
🌡️ HOW WARM WAS IT?
Global average temperatures reached roughly 25°C in parts of the Mesozoic, compared with about 15°C today. Even the deep oceans were warm, close to 12°C, instead of the near-freezing 2°C they are now.
"A whole world with no winter ice, just heat, jungle and giants."
HOT!
GREEN POLES
🌲 Forests grew at the poles
🦕 Dinosaurs lived in the far south
❄️ Almost no permanent ice
🦕 Dinosaurs lived in the far south
❄️ Almost no permanent ice
WARM RAIN
🌧️ Warm, humid air everywhere
🌿 Giant ferns and conifers
🪴 Green stretched pole to pole
🌿 Giant ferns and conifers
🪴 Green stretched pole to pole