Global Warming in the Bighorn Basin 56 Million Years Ago

This presentation by Dr. Scott Wing was hosted at the Draper Natural History Museum on July 11, 2024.
Abstract:
We live in a time marked by rapid increase in the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the resulting global warming and other climatic changes. These changes in climate will last thousands of years into the future and will have long-lasting effects on plants, animals, and ecosystems. Our predictions of the future are improving, but we still know dangerously little about changes to come.
The Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, or PETM, was an episode that occurred 56 million years ago during which a rapid increase in carbon dioxide resulted in large climatic and ecological changes. The best place in the world to study the PETM is right here in the Bighorn Basin. This presentation discusses the question: What does close study of this long-ago episode of global change tell us about what might happen in the future?
About Dr. Scott Wing:
Scott Wing was born in New Orleans and grew up there and in North Carolina. His first summer of field work in the Bighorn Basin (52 years ago this month) made him want to be a paleontologist, and he has returned to the area nearly every summer since.
Wing has been a research scientist and Curator of Fossil Plants at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History since 1984. His research focuses on ancient climate and plants. He was part of the team that created the Smithsonian’s National Hall of Fossils, Deep Time, which opened in 2019. He is a Fellow of the Geological Society of America and the Paleontological Society, and was awarded the Paleontological Society Medal in 2021.