by Tohoku University, November 10, 2017 in ScienceDaily

An asteroid, also known as the Chicxulub Impactor, hit Earth some 66 million years ago, causing a crater 180 km wide. The impact of the asteroid heated organic matter in rocks and ejected it into the atmosphere, forming soot in the stratosphere.

According to the study, soot from hydrocarbon-rich areas caused global cooling of 8-11°C and cooling on land of 13-17°C. It also caused a decrease in precipitation by approximately 70-85 percent on land and a decrease of approximately 5-7°C in seawater temperature at a 50-m water depth, leading to mass extinction of life forms including dinosaurs and ammonites