Often on the Internet you can find information that palm trees once grew in Antarctica. In general, the climate there was very mild!
Is there any evidence for such claims?
At the beginning of the decade, samples of pollen from palms and plants close to modern baobab were found in the geological layers of the Antarctic continent.
Drilling also made it possible to extract a sedimentary core in the Wilkes Land area.
An example of a sedimentary core.
Studies of the obtained rocks showed that during the Early Eocene, about 60 million years ago, the average air temperature in winter did not fall below 10 degrees, and in the summertime it exceeded 20 degrees.
And the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere of the early Eocene exceeded the modern one by almost two times.
Promotional video:
Therefore, the planet was uncompromisingly dominated by a tropical and subtropical climate: the poles are free of ice, the Antarctic coast is covered with palm forests, which are gradually replaced by conifers when moving to the South Pole.
The land is in the Eocene, there is practically no ice.
Even the arctic island of Ellesmere (off the northern coast of Greenland) was covered in subtropical vegetation.
An amazing time: it is warm everywhere on Earth, the average temperature in some periods exceeds the modern one by 10 degrees, and snow and ice remain the lot of isolated mountain peaks.
The coast of the circumpolar island in the Eocene.
Unfortunately, by geological standards, this period of the thermal maximum did not last long.
Already from the middle of the Eocene, a gradual cooling begins, the climate becomes drier, and by the end of the period the first glaciers appear in Antarctica.
Iceberg off the coast of Antarctica.
So, the statement that palm trees grew in Antarctica is quite reasonable!
Are similar warming possible in the future? It is hard to say. But the rapid increase in the share of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere thanks to human activities at least suggests that warm periods are ahead!