Global warming in the Bighorn Basin topic of talk [Video]

Scott Wing, curator of Paleobotany for the National Museum of Natural History, will talk about “Global warming in the Bighorn Basin 56 million years ago” at noon on July 11 at the Buffalo Bill Center of the West’s Coe Auditorium.

“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,” Wing said.

While predictions of the future are improving, we still know little about the changes to come, which will have long-lasting effects on plants, animals and ecosystems.

In his presentation, Wing discusses the “Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum” (or PETM) episode that occurred in the Bighorn Basin. During the episode, a rapid increase in carbon dioxide resulted in large climatic and ecological changes, making the basin the …