That comes from this statement in the press release:
Professor Kennedy said that the doubling of the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere over the past 50 years is “like hitting our ecosystem with a sledge-hammer”
Hmmm, you’d think they could get the basic math right. From ftp://ftp.cmdl.noaa.gov/ccg/co2/trends/co2_mm_mlo.txt
Today’s seasonally corrected Mauna Loa CO2 April 2011 = 390.49 ppm
The seasonally corrected Mauna Loa CO2 value 50 years ago , April 1961 = 317.27 ppm
317.27 x 2 (a doubling over 50 years) = 634.54 ppm Seems the claim for doubling over 50 years is 244.05 ppm short. Perhaps he meant a ball peen hammer.
Greenhouse ocean study offers warning for future
The mass extinction of marine life in our oceans during prehistoric times is a warning that the same could happen again due to high levels of greenhouse gases, according to new research.
Professor Martin Kennedy from the University of Adelaide (School of Earth & Environmental Sciences) and Professor Thomas Wagner from Newcastle University, UK, (Civil Engineering and Geosciences) have been studying ‘greenhouse oceans’ – those that have been depleted of oxygen, suffering increases in carbon dioxide and temperature.
Using core samples drilled from the ocean bed off the coast of western Africa, the geologists studied layers of sediment from the Late Cretaceous Period (85 million years ago) across a 400,000-year timespan. They found a significant amount of organic material – marine life – buried within deoxygenated layers of the sediment.
Professor Wagner says the results of their research, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), has relevance for our modern world: “We know that ‘dead zones’ are rapidly growing in size and number in seas and oceans across the globe,” he said. “These are areas of water that are lacking in oxygen and are suffering from increases of CO2, rising temperatures, nutrient run-off from agriculture and other factors.”
Their research points to a mass mortality in the oceans at a time when the Earth was going through a greenhouse effect. High levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and rising temperatures led to a severe lack of oxygen (hypoxia) in the water that marine animals depend upon.
“What’s alarming to us as scientists is that there were only very slight natural changes that resulted in the onset of hypoxia in the deep ocean,” said Professor Kennedy. “This occurred relatively rapidly – in periods of hundreds of years, or possibly even less – not gradually over longer, geological time scales, suggesting that the Earth’s oceans are in a much more delicate balance during greenhouse conditions than originally thought, and may respond in a more abrupt fashion to even subtle changes in temperature and CO2 levels.”
Professor Kennedy said that the doubling of the amount of carbon dioxide in our atmosphere over the past 50 years is “like hitting our ecosystem with a sledge-hammer” compared to the very small changes in incoming solar energy (radiation) which was capable of triggering these events in the past.
“This could have a catastrophic, profound impact on the sustainability of life in our oceans, which in turn is likely to impact on the sustainability of life for many land-based species, including humankind,” he added.
However, the geological record offers a glimmer of hope thanks to a naturally occurring response to greenhouse conditions. After a hypoxic phase, oxygen concentration in the ocean seems to improve, and marine life returns.
This research has shown that natural processes of carbon burial kick in and the land comes to the rescue, with soil-formed minerals collecting and burying excess dissolved organic matter in seawater. Burial of the excess carbon ultimately contributes to CO2 removal from the atmosphere, cooling the planet and the ocean.
“This is nature’s solution to the greenhouse effect and it could offer a possible solution for us,” said Professor Wagner. “If we are able to learn more about this effect and its feedbacks, we may be able to manage it, and reduce the present rate of warming threatening our oceans.”
This passed peer review????
Hmmmm. Start with a conclusion and search for the evidence. Then ramble confusedly when the evidence does not quite support the conclusion. We have been seeing a bit of this lately.
Really? Increasing plant food is like hitting the ecosystem with a sledgehammer? Maybe if by sledgehammer you mean, “awesome sauce”.
It’s not even a ball- pein hammer, more like hitting the eco system with fertiliser!
“If we are able to learn more about this effect and its feedbacks, we may be able to manage it, and reduce the present rate of warming threatening our oceans.”
The present rate of warming [is] threatening our oceans. So it is the “rate” of warming that is the threat? Or the absolute warming? Or the level of CO2? Or the level of O2? Or all of the above? Send more money and we will let you know.
If it is the rate of warming then the solution is simple, melt the glaciers and increase the flow of cold water into the sea …
I suppose that when ‘facts’ and ‘reality’ let you down, you need to start using models and hyperbole
As McCoy used to say(ish) it’s science Jim, but not as we know it
“They found a significant amount of organic material – marine life – buried within deoxygenated layers of the sediment.”
Well done Sherlock – you’ve just proved that when water becomes deoxygenated, more marine life dies. Everything else is based on unsuported assertions.
That the Cretaceous underwent a warming period around 85mya is well documented. Unfortunately, Sherlock, Co2 level’s were declining.
There goes another nice theory. Never mind, that makes it a dead certainty for the next IPCC novel.
The punchline: “This is nature’s solution to the greenhouse effect and it could offer a possible solution for us,” said Professor Wagner. “If we are able to learn more about this effect and its feedbacks, we may be able to manage it, and reduce the present rate of warming threatening our oceans.” is worth the read to the end.
“Their research points to a mass mortality in the oceans at a time when the Earth was going through a greenhouse effect. High levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and rising temperatures led to a severe lack of oxygen (hypoxia) in the water that marine animals depend upon.
”
Cause and effect mixed up once again. The high levels of CO2 in the atmosphere and low levels of oxygen in the water are both the result of high temperatures on the Earth, not the cause!
The cause being a higher level of solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface during past eras.
From above: “High levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and rising temperatures led to a severe lack of oxygen (hypoxia) in the water that marine animals depend upon.”
http://www.ff.org/centers/csspp/library/co2weekly/2005-08-18/dioxide.htm
“There has historically been much more CO2 in our atmosphere than exists today. For example, during the Jurassic Period (200 mya), average CO2 concentrations were about 1800 ppm or about 4.8 times higher than today. The highest concentrations of CO2 during all of the Paleozoic Era occurred during the Cambrian Period, nearly 7000 ppm — about 19 times higher than today.”
So why did the little critters grow in the first place?
“Their research points to a mass mortality in the oceans at a time when the Earth was going through a greenhouse effect.”
So the GHE comes and goes? Or does it runaway?
If they were right, it would be boiling hot right now. Can they even keep a straight face when spewing this crap?
I have serious questions about the quality of scientists who peer-reviewed this silly and alarmist mish-mash of supposition and muddling effect and cause. It’s not just basic arithmetic that’s incorrect!
Cue the Peter Gabriel music video…
Correct me if I’m wrong, but several hundred million years ago, wasn’t the level around 1,000 PPM? If you go back even longer, wasn’t it around 5,000 PPM?
Why is it OK for the Earth back then, but not now?
Last time I checked, plants need CO2.
“If we are able to learn more about this effect and its feedbacks,”
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I think this is a do over…………………
One thing I’ll give them all credit for….
…they have no shame in showing the world exactly how ignorant they are
Astounding. My last attempt at a publication, in 1992, left the impression I had put the cart before the horse. It got lambasted in review. Not that it was a bad paper, but that it was contextually juggled. It never did get published, because other things came along at the time. But it taught me a lesson.
But this effort not only juggles context, it out-and-out destroys it, like so many papers of this type which cite precedents of past warming, or die-offs, or ice-melting, you name it, with nary a mention of ‘anthropogenic’..because, ladies and gentlemen, we weren’t AROUND at the time. Another case of “warming happened”, but somehow today’s ‘warming’ is different. Doubling CO2??? Now I KNOW that the peer-review process is corrupt as regards climate mythology; nothing more than a closed club of furtive and jolly neanderthals all slapping each other on the back and calling people names…and allowing shoddy work to slide by.
This surely is the result of ‘beer review’ and not ‘peer review’.
Could someone explain why Mauna Loa is the go-to for the atmospheric CO2 measurement? Being as it’s very close to active volcanoes, it seems to be a possibly biased source. Why isn’t the CO2 level averaged from remote sites around the world, as is attempted with temperature? I’d think a CO2 measurement from Antarctica or Easter Island would be good samples as well.
Using core samples drilled from the ocean bed off the coast of western Africa, the geologists studied layers of sediment from the Late Cretaceous Period (85 million years ago) across a 400,000-year timespan. They found a significant amount of organic material – marine life – buried within deoxygenated layers of the sediment.
Would the spread of the continents have anything to do with lack of oxygen? The underwater rift may have had more to do with high temps than CO2.
http://www.dinosauria.com/dml/maps.htm
Adelaide? Perhaps he is the present holder of the Barrie Harrop chair at that august university.
Actually, a sledge hammer is very small and light compared to the massiveness of the ecosystem. Metaphor fail.
If Kennedy digs a few more cores he’ll show that Co2 was the cause of the Big Bang and that we’re perilously to causing another Big Bang with our SUV’s.
“These are areas of water that are lacking in oxygen and are suffering from increases of CO2, rising temperatures, nutrient run-off from agriculture and other factors.”
“…suffering from increases in CO2?”
It appears that they are saying that the levels of CO2 in the ocean are going up as the water heats; which is backwards. If that is what they are saying, the editor should not utilize those peer-reviewers anymore.
“They found a significant amount of organic material – marine life – buried within deoxygenated layers of the sediment.” does not necessarly mean they die due to the deoxygenate. It could mean the area was so fertile and full of life, more died there. It could also mean the same number died as usual but were just better preserved.
Wasn’t that about the time when the volcanic activity produced the Deccan Traps? That lasted quite a few hundreds of years, must’ve had quite an effect on the biosphere.