An abrupt drop in weathering flux amplified the Artinskian Warming Event during the Late Paleozoic Ice Age

Contemporary glaciers are retreating at an alarming rate, an irreversible trend closely associated with ongoing global warming. Approximately 290 million years ago, Earth experienced a comparable large-scale glacial retreat, marking a pivotal transition of the Late Paleozoic Ice Age (LPIA) toward a greenhouse condition. This profound climatic shift, termed the Artinskian Warming Event (AWE), has been extensively attributed to volcanic degassing. Nevertheless, how continental weathering shaped climate dynamics throughout this period remains enigmatic. To address this issue, we integrated multiple geochemical proxies indicative of the carbon cycle, volcanism, and weathering, and applied the Celine Model to constrain silicate weathering fluxes. Based on the coupled variations between mercury enrichment and estimated weathering flux during the Artinskian, we propose that the AWE was not only driven by volcanic degassing but also amplified by an abrupt drop in low-latitude mafic weathering flux, rendering this interval the most intense deglaciation phase of the LPIA. An abrupt drop in low-latitude mafic weathering flux amplified the Artinskian Warming Event, potentially constituted the most intense deglaciation interval within the Late Paleozoic Ice Age, according to geochemical analysis of proxies and simulations from the early Permian strata of the Naqing section in South China.