Scott Wing

Scott Wing is best known for his research on the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), a period of rapid global warming that occurred approximately 56 million years ago. His decades of fieldwork in the Bighorn Basin of Wyoming have produced some of the most detailed terrestrial fossil plant records showing how land ecosystems responded to this sudden ancient climate event.

Wing's fossil plant specimens are housed at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History in Washington, D.C., where he serves as curator of paleobotany. Some of his research on deep-time climate change has also been incorporated into the museum's public exhibits on Earth history.

The PETM involved a massive, rapid release of carbon into the atmosphere that caused global temperatures to spike by roughly 5 degrees Celsius, making it the closest geological analogue to current human-caused warming. Wing's fossil plant studies document how forests migrated, species ranges shifted, and terrestrial ecosystems reorganized during this event, providing critical data for climate modelers.

Yes, Wing has published numerous peer-reviewed papers drawing on Smithsonian collections and his own field collections from the Bighorn Basin, focusing on Cenozoic paleoecology and climate reconstruction. His research spans topics from leaf-margin analysis for estimating ancient temperatures to the evolutionary responses of plant communities to greenhouse climate conditions.