Climate simulations suggest that large injections of soot into the atmosphere estimated to have occurred at the Cretaceous-Paleogene boundary would have blocked more than 99% of sunlight from reaching Earth's surface for more than 1 year, preventing photosynthesis, reducing global average temperatures by as much as 16 °C for several years, and depleting the ozone layer through stratospheric warming and moistening, with these effects likely contributing to mass extinction.
Article #17-08980: "On transient climate change at the Cretaceous?Paleogene boundary due to atmospheric soot injections," by Charles G. Bardeen, Rolando Garcia, Owen Toon, and Andrew Conley.
MEDIA CONTACT: Charles G. Bardeen, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO; tel: 303-497-1752; e-mail: < bardeenc@ucar.edu >
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Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences