The research, produced by scientists at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, showed how global warming caused by greenhouse gases can quickly disrupt ocean processes and lead to drastic changes.
The Palaeocene/Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), which occurred 55 million years ago, saw the planet's surface temperature rise by between five and eight degrees Celsius in a very short time, unleashing climate shifts that lasted tens of thousands of years.
The study appears in the respected British journal Nature, and comes after research published in November suggested that global warming is slowing the Atlantic current, giving western Europe its mild climate.
Scientists Flavia Nunes and Richard Norris looked at the chemical makeup of tiny ancient sea creatures at various locations around the world.
They also measured isotopes from cores drilled into the deep floor in four different ocean basins, taking samples from sediment layers deposited before, during and after the PETM.
The pair found the world's ocean current system did a U-turn during the PETM, and then reversed itself.
The unique data set they constructed for the first time showed that a monumental reversal in the circulation of deep-ocean patterns around the world has taken place, and helped researchers conclude that it was triggered by the global warming the world experienced at the time.
"The PETM example shows that anthropogenic [man-made] forcing may have lasting effects, not only in global climate but in deep-ocean circulation as well," said the scientists.
The huge temperature rise may have occurred within just a few thousand years, but the researchers point out that the effects were enduring and the lesson for humankind today is clear.
"The earth is a system that can change very rapidly," said Ms Nunes.
"Fifty-five million years ago, when the earth was in a period of global warmth, ocean currents rapidly changed direction and this change did not reverse to original conditions for about 20,000 years," she said.
"What this tells us is that the changes we make to the earth today, such as anthropogenically induced global warming, could lead to dramatic changes to our planet."
In 2001, the United Nations’ top scientific authority on global warming, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) estimated there would be a temperature rise of 1.4 to 5.8 degrees Celsius from 1990 to 2100.