Atmospheric CO2, global temperature, and surface ocean acidity response to fossil carbon burning insights from an ancient analogue

New geochemical proxies will be used to reconstruct changes in atmosphere CO2 levels and radiative climate forcing, surface ocean acidification, and amount of carbon released into the oceans and atmosphere during an extraordinary natural analogue for anthropogenic CO2 emissions that occurred 55 million years ago. This will provide the first quantitative basis for scaling the profound climate change and marine and terrestrial ecosystems impacts during this ancient event with the rate and size of the carbon cycle perturbation. This represents a vital calibration of the consequences of future global warming and ocean acidification scenarios upon marine and terrestrial ecosystems.