https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carnian_pluvial_episode
https://youtu.be/tlUDzIhqDDw?si=7of46Uo0h-bkQWTs
lasted for perhaps 1–2 million years (around 234–232 million years ago)
How did it rain so long in the Carnian pluvial event? (ChatGPT, 2025-7-6)
Ah, the Carnian Pluvial Event (CPE) — a remarkable episode in Earth’s history, when it rained for over a million years.
This happened roughly 234–232 million years ago, during the Late Triassic period. The event was marked by intense, long-lasting rainfall, global climate shifts, ecosystem upheavals, and major evolutionary transitions — including the rise of dinosaurs and early mammals.
🌧️ Why did it rain for so long?
The cause of this prolonged wet period was likely a combination of volcanic, climatic, and ecological feedback loops. Here’s the breakdown:
1.
Massive Volcanic Eruptions (Wrangellia LIP)
- The Wrangellia Large Igneous Province (present-day western Canada and Alaska) erupted during this period.
- It released enormous quantities of CO₂ and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere.
- Result: global warming → increased evaporation from oceans → more water vapor in the atmosphere.
🌀 Water vapor is itself a potent greenhouse gas, and this feedback intensified the hydrological cycle — creating a hot, wet greenhouse world.
2.
Destabilization of Climate Systems
- The sudden warming disrupted existing climate patterns, shifting Earth from a more arid regime to a monsoonal one.
- Regions that were previously deserts experienced persistent and heavy rains.
- This was not a local weather anomaly, but a planet-wide shift in atmospheric dynamics.
3.
Carbon Cycle Chaos
- The volcanic CO₂ triggered ocean acidification, extinction of many marine species, and breakdown of existing ecosystems.
- Collapsing ecosystems released more carbon from soils and biomass (especially from massive peatlands), fueling further warming and instability.
- In some regions, massive floods washed terrestrial organic matter into the oceans, creating black shales (carbon-rich sediments that preserved the event).
4.
It Wasn’t “Rain” as We Know It — It Was a Climate Mode
- Think of it not as a literal uninterrupted downpour, but a planetary climatic regime, similar to a supercharged, global-scale El Niño lasting over 1 million years.
- Regions oscillated between extreme wet and dry, but the general trend was much wetter than the preceding arid Triassic environment.
🌱 Why It Mattered
The Carnian Pluvial Event had deep evolutionary significance:
- Wiped out many dominant Triassic herbivores and opened ecological space.
- Gave rise to the first true dinosaurs, early mammals, and many modern groups of plants and invertebrates.
- It was a punctuated moment when climate catastrophe triggered evolutionary innovation — a classic case of destruction enabling emergence.
🌀 In short:
It rained for a million years not because of a freak storm, but because Earth’s climate system was thrust into a long-term hyper-greenhouse state, triggered by massive volcanic CO₂, climate destabilization, and feedback loops in the hydrological cycle.
Would you like a “deep time” poetic rendering of the Carnian Pluvial Event — as a metaphor for crisis, rebirth, or therapeutic regression?
