From the AGU today, I find they are moving the cause of ancient planetary disaster from comets impacts and volcanoes or other big events to CO2 causing acidification of the oceans, literally they have a blast from the gas, to make CO2 the villain here. Of course, it’s just another modeling exercise in uncertainty.
From Wikipedia, a clear cut case of “we don’t know“:
There are several proposed mechanisms for the extinctions; the earlier phase was likely due to gradual environmental change, while the latter phase has been argued to be due to a catastrophic event. Suggested mechanisms for the latter include large or multiple bolide impact events, increased volcanism, and sudden release of methane clathrate from the sea floor; gradual changes include sea-level change, anoxia, increasing aridity, and a shift in ocean circulation driven by climate change.
From the AGU Highlights:
1. Was ocean acidification responsible for history’s greatest extinction?
Two hundred and fifty million years ago, the world suffered the greatest recorded extinction of all time. More than 90 percent of marine animals and a majority of terrestrial species disappeared, yet the cause of the Permian-Triassic boundary (PTB) die-off remains unknown. Various theories abound, with most focusing on rampant Siberian volcanism and its potential consequences: global warming, carbon dioxide poisoning, ocean acidification, or the severe drawdown of oceanic dissolved oxygen levels, also known as anoxia.
To narrow down the range of possible causes, Montenegro et al. ran climate simulations for the PTB using the University of Victoria Earth System Climate Model, a carbon cycle-climate coupled general circulation model. The model’s highlights include dynamic representations of terrestrial vegetation, ocean carbon fluxes, and net primary production. The researchers ran nine simulations, using three different concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide, three modes of ocean floor topography, and two competing theories for the geography of the time.
The authors find that varying the ocean floor topography by adding deep ocean ridges increases the strength of the Meridional Overturning Circulation (MOC) – a convective cycle that mixes ocean waters. Also, the presence of the MOC was not abated by elevated atmospheric carbon dioxide as was found in previous research, suggesting that the ocean would have been well mixed and well oxygenated, restricting the chances of widespread deep ocean anoxia.
Further, the researchers find that if atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were 3000 parts per million by volume or higher, fitting within estimates for the Permian-Triassic boundary, the ocean pH would have been 7.34 or lower. At those levels, the authors say the ocean’s acidity would have had significant negative impacts on mollusks, corals, and other species that rely on oceanic calcium carbonate, suggesting ocean acidification may have been the main culprit in the Permian-Triassic boundary extinction.
Source: Paleoceanography, doi:10.1029/2010PA002058, 2011 http://dx.doi.org/10.1029/2010PA002058
Title: Climate simulations of the Permian-Triassic boundary: Ocean acidification and the extinction event
Authors: A. Montenegro: Department of Earth Sciences, St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada, and Environmental Sciences Research Centre, St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada;
P. Spence and K. J. Meissner: Climate Change Research Centre, University of New South Wales, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia;
M. J. Melchin: Department of Earth Sciences, St. Francis Xavier University, Antigonish, Nova Scotia, Canada;
M. Eby and S. T. Johnston: School of Earth and Ocean Sciences, University of Victoria, Victoria, British Columbia, Canada.
eyesonu says:
August 31, 2011 at 11:36 am
I’m not sure what to make of this.
———-
The research is a sanity check for both the model and the idea that CO2 could cause an extinction via ocean acidity.
It helps to find weaknesses in the model that might produce erroneous results when attempting to simulate current conditions.
Marcos says:
August 31, 2011 at 11:51 am
the whole ‘acidification’ scare is making me insane! we should stop encouraging use of that word. i guess ‘ocean neutralization’ isnt dramatic enough….
——–
You need to do a sanity check on the whole propaganda conspiracy theory idea. All that is happening is that standard usage of a technical term is being carried over without translation by journalists, into stories for the common public.
The same problem occurs for terms like energy.
And you cant really expect journalists to give you a science lesson for every story they publish so this won’t change.
All you really need to understand is that shellfish don’t grow well if the pH is not the same that their metabolism is tuned for.
Kasuha says:
August 31, 2011 at 11:55 am
Is there any reason why that extinction couldn’t have been caused by a widespread viral or bacterial disease?
———
There is a reason: bacterial and virus diseases are species specific.
Sagi says
So oceans have had adequate means to dispose of excess carbon, and have done so.
Makes the 750 gigatons in the atmosphere and the 6 gigatons produced annually by humans seem a bit puny, doesn’t it?
——–
Yes, perfectly correct. But I suspect that you are overlooking the fact that geological processes are very very slow compared to the current CO2 increase which is very very fast.
And I suspect that you are also overlooking the bank account principle. This says that if you add a tiny amount of money to your bank account every payday, eventually you will have a lot of money.
Frank Kotler says:
August 31, 2011 at 2:42
This is an experiment that can easily be done. Anyone got access to a bucket of seawater and a pH meter? (ideally: materials, apparatus, procedure, observations, analysis, conclusions – that’s how we used to do “science”!)
——-///
Go for it. But you will need a pretty fancy and expensive pH meter.
One correction to phlogiston (31 August 2011, 3:42):
One phylum of invertebrate evolved in the Ordovician: the Bryzoa.
But, the comments here are correct: the Brenner model of ancient CO2 concentrations (and the most widely accepted) shows that levels varied from over 6000 ppm near the beginning of the Paleozoic, to a low around 500 ppm during the Carboniferous. To put it succinctly, the marine invertebrates faced with concentrations of 3000 ppm (give or take) would have been in their “happy place”.
I must also take issue with the phrase ” … deep ocean ridges … “. As a scientist, I find this phrase completely incomprehensible. If something is ” … deep … “, then it is far from the surface. The abyssal plain upon which the Titanic rests is somewhat on the “deep” side, in excess of 3,000 m, if memory serves.
Then, this phenomenon is called an, ” … ocean ridge … “, by which I take it to mean some topographical feature, which is elevated above some arbitrary base level, say, the surrounding ocean floor.
So, wouldn’t a ” … deep ocean ridge … ” be something which is topographically subdued, and a very minor factor, in the parameter the authors are trying to represent?
Maybe I do not understand what the authors are trying to say. What ever they ARE trying to say, they did a miserable job of saying it.
Best regards to all,
Mark H.
It says that the GCM used in the study was developed by the University of Victoria. This U is also home to Andrew Weaver, the IPCC scientist who won the Nobel Prize along with Al Gore.
He’s also very lawsuit happy, and is currently involved with two lawsuits against sceptics who dared to challenge his research. He has also developed several of the models the IPCC uses.
If this is what the study is using, you can bet the model is deeply flawed.
On a side note, it’s interesting to note their attempts to link CO2 to everything.
Why don’t they link it to, say, life on Earth?!
Simply put, no CO2, no life. Seems funny they forgot that.
Next up, they’ll be blaming WW2 on CO2.
(9 simulations) = (3 CO2) * (3 oceans) * (2 geography)
9=18
Well, maybe they’re half right.
eyesonu says:
August 31, 2011 at 11:36 am
“I’m not sure what to make of this.
From a heretical point of view, it just shows that the science (Wild Ass Guess) is not settled on anything.
From the religious Church of Global Warming it will prove that they were right all along.
So many choices, so many decisions, so many contradictions, what to do? I will once again meet with a representitive of BEER.”
eyesonu,
My friend, we share a common friend! I have spent great swathes of time,energy, study and reflection in the Fluids Lab, observing and contemplating bubble nucleation and growth in naturally and artificially carbonated liquids! I have discovered fundamental truths during these immersion studies… but I sometimes have difficulty remembering them in the morning.. ahem.
When I hear folks like Lazytweener, Septic, and Rickety Gates stating certainty about the dubious aspects of AGW science, I realize ‘somebody needs a beer’! Their failures to self medicate and mellow should in no way impair our enjoyments, of both their humorous contributions or the beers they have failed to quaff!
Ahhhh, there IS a Killians in the ‘fridge! Cheers!!!
Mac the Knife says
* * *
Your post made me laugh out loud!
I think you might to something there. Maybe if ol Gore sat back and relaxed with a cold one once in a while, he wouldn’t be so angry.
Then again, he did seem disturbingly unhinged, so maybe he’d had a few too many before his rants.
Possibly it was the same with the authors of this study. A high state of intoxication certainly could cause them to forget the high CO2 levels in the periods preceding the Permian.
People discussing ocean acidification are often alarmed at a pH change from 8.1 to 8.0 (or so) in ocean waters from surface to a few hundred metres below the surface.
(Side exercise: Do a search to find the pH variation with depth in deep oceans. The first one I found, after an hour of searching, was from a WUWT post by Willis Eschenbach, http://wattsupwiththat.com/2010/06/19/the-electric-oceanic-acid-test/ . Thank you Anthony & Willis.)
I suspect it is hard to find these figues, reproduced here from my little web site http://www.geoffstuff.com/OceanpH.jpg
because the vast mass of the ocean has a pH closer to 7.4 than to 8.0 or 8.1. A little upwelling will bring surface acidification independent of the CO2 levels of today, though the system is dynamic and some further changes happen.
One might ask the question, which geological era produced the present day deep ocean pH and what was the atmospheric CO2 level then?
Wowsers. A remarkably unconvincing piece of research even taking into account the heroic efforts of LazyTeenager to prop it up.
The floor of the oceans are covered with powdered indigestion tablets so anyone hoping for acidic oceans has a long wait.
But there is something else these people always leave out of their extinction theories – life itself. All these events have been against a backdrop of evolution. It’s quite possible that large numbers of older species are simply wiped out by new species. I reckon the last dinosaur egg was probably eaten by a bird or mammal rather than environmental changes being the cause. There is often evidence in the fossil record of numbers declining before these extinction events. The biggest extinction event of all must have been the ‘tipping point’ when free oxygen appeared in the oceans and atmosphere. Somehow we don’t consider that an environmental disaster.
@AlanG
It is true that mass extinction can in principle occur without a physical catastrophe. In his excellent book “Deep Simplicity” John Gribben discusses chaotic dynamics, and describes how a log-log (power law) relationship characterises non-linear chaotic systems. He proposed species extinctions as an example of a chaotic network. Some extinctions destabilise the ecosystem leading to other extinctions, while others leave little colateral damage. Modeling extinctions as a chaotic network showed that very occasionally you get mass excinctions, just from the system itself, without any external perturbation.
They don’t learn, do they?
Representation: To call up by despcription or portrayal or imagination, figure; place likeness of before mind or senses; serve as likeness of; make out to be, allege that, describe or depict; work of art portraying something, a calling of attention to something;
Simulation: Fegin, pretend to have or feel,wear the guise of or act the part of, counterfeit, having the appearance of, shadowy likeness of or mere pretence, unreal thing.
You probably know where these came from, my trusty Pocket OED 1925, if not. Their words not mine! Thank goodness they didn’t use the word “sophisticated”, then they would be done for 🙂
Don’t these people know the neutral level of pH?
The latest experiments with molluscs show that even in acid waters, below a pH of 7.0, they thrive provided the acidity is caused by CO2. But in the real seas as we all know the pH is kept above 7.5 by the bicarbonate feedback loop.
And at ocean vents where the pH is around 4.5 molluscs still thrive.
doug kemp says:
August 31, 2011 at 12:13 pm
Is it possible to be both stupid and ignorant at the same time?
==================
yup Daily Proof in Aus! JuLiar and Bob.
and then theres the IPCC and…and…and…
proof abounds.
An anoxic event in the oceans is a lack of oxygen, that land species also died out is either a lack of oxygen or a poisonous substance in the air. 6000PPM of CO2 is not poisonous so the fickle finger of fate must point else where. Some severe catastrophy must have befallen our earth, or an alternate explanation would be lack of CO2. With all its dire consequences for life on earth
Response to “Lazy Teenager”, 31 August 2011, 5:40 PM,
who says, ” … you are overlooking the fact that geological process are very very slow compared to the current CO2 increase which is very very fast.”
So, you have a model which tells us ALL of the past rates of change of CO2 concentration in the Earth’s atmosphere?
Really?
Oh, please, do share with us. While you are at it, please take a look at things like the EPICA and Vostok core data; note the “rate” at which CO2 entered (and left) the atmosphere during the transitions from glacial to interglacial events, as well as the (now) well-established lag-time, of CO2 FOLLOWING temperature change.
Loved the ‘bank’ analogy. Sorry yours fell apart so quickly; you labor under the delusion that each additional molecule of CO2 placed into Earth’s atmosphere, has the exact same effect as the preceeding molecule.
The empirical data show that the potential warming effect of additional CO2 is exponential, and not linear. To use your ‘bank’ analogy, it goes like this:
On Monday, you deposit $1 into your bank account, and your banker tells you that you are earning 5% on that dollar. So, on Tuesday, you deposit another dollar into your account, but on Tuesday, your banker tells you that you are only earning 4% on that dollar. Wednesday, you deposit another dollar, but the interest rate is now 3% … …
and so on.
Please do argue with these data; I would request that you refrain from arguing with me, as I am unable to change what the data say. It might surprise you what you can learn when you put your mind to it.
Best regards,
Mark H.
The great extinctions: It was ET that done it. He came on this planet, saw that the live beasts of that time were a threat to this planet, and done them all in. Now we are imminently in danger of a repeat great cull by ET to save the planet again. Al Gore will be spared, taken upon a spaceship and given a new life in space where the temperature will be constant at -273C and where climate change will not happen. /sarc off.
Regarding LazyTeenager says:
August 31, 2011 at 5:40 pm.
If you sincerely wish to support this poor study please respond to those comments which come from posters with a scientific background. The study is garbage and even such an immature teen as yourself knows it. The money part of your 5:40 post is this,…” Yes, perfectly correct. But I suspect that you are overlooking the fact that geological processes are very very slow compared to the current CO2 increase which is very very fast.” Really? compared to this from tty says:
August 31, 2011 at 1:03 pm
…”So what did cause the P/T extinction? Almost certainly the eruption of the Siberian Traps. That is the largest magmatic province in the world, containing at least 3,000,000, and perhaps as much av 5,000,000 cubic kilometres of basalt (that is enough to cover the entire Earth (including oceans) 20 to 30 feet deep), and it all seems to have erupted in less than 2 million years, with single eruptions being as large as 20,000 cubic kilometres.” or this from “LarryD says: August 31, 2011 at 2:06 pm
“ocean acidification: because corals are encapsulated by live tissue within which the concentrations of minerals are controlled by the coral polyp, they are not very sensitive to acids outside. However, since their metabolism depends on that of their algal symbionts (who provide the food), they react favourably to raised levels of CO2, also producing skeleton faster. Warmth and CO2 work together, resulting in rapid growth, rather than decay.”
Yes Lazy, methinks you are trying to hijack the thread by cherry picking what you respond to. Please respond to the posts above plus these. phlogiston says:August 31, 2011 at 3:42 pm and Mark Hladik says: August 31, 2011 at 6:16 pm This will acomplish two things. It will bring us back to determing the veracity of the study and it will show if you are both serious about actually defending it, and capable of doing so. What you have done so far is nothing more then a distraction and is indeded troll like.
@LazyTeenager
“Well it’s a good point, they would adapt, eventually. It’s just a question of how fast can animals adapt to changes in CO2 compared with how fast the change in CO2 was. If the changes in CO2 happen over 10-50k years many animal will not be able to adapt fast enough.”
I’m sorry, but that statement shows a complete ignorance of biology.
Epigenetics allow rapid, pronounced phenotypical adaptation in only a generation. In a 1000 years, tolerance levels for extreme conditions can radically change in any species, even mammalians, and humans. Look at the different “races” of people; those were rapid adaptations to wildly different enviromental conditions from the burning heat of Africa and Australia, to the cold Norwegian landscapes.
Adapting to mildly less alkaline conditions is a small feat for biological organisms, as it requires only small changes in gene dosage for buffering proteins and ion pumps. It’s also why the current scale about “acidification” is all about “what could happen” considering nothing actually -is- happening to the species of the world. They can keep pace with no difficulty.
In short, anything that moves even as fast as the time scale of decades is not going to endanger most species. Organisms are incredibly adaptive, but just like with geology and paleontology, climate science knows nothing about biology and has no regard for any of our work when they spin up their scare stories.
@LazyTeenager
Also, if you want to believe this horrific disaster of a study, please explain how almost all terrestrial species went extinct at the same time?
96% of all species on the planet died out at the P-T transition. The 3000 ppm CO2 of that time was not even that atypical of ancient Earth. The Devonian also had atmospheric CO2 around that level, and no mass extinctions occurred: and that was a time where the majority of life on the planet was still in the oceans!
If one looks at graph of extinction rate, one sees an unmistaken trend in extinction rate. Globally, extinction rate constantly decreases since PT but stays relatively high although variable prior to it. What exactly changed over that time span that caused it to behave in trends like this? Why, the only thing: _The_Life_Itself_ changed!!! Nothing else, but Life. Which pretty much answers the question of What causes mass extinctions: Life Itself does; mass extinctions are massive events of biosphere ‘willfully’ rebuilding itself, sacrificing old for the sake of new. It is more than obvious in case of PT extinction – for it was after PT that diversity trend turned sharply to the rise, and extinction rated went down. The biosphere turned much more stable after old trash has been wiped out, and even fall of Chicxulub asteroid didn’t change the trend, just put small bump in it.
Yet there are serious reason to think that even proverbial KT extinction is a dealing of life itself, for it really started several million years before KT impact. What happened in KT event, is that biosphere weakened and started massive restructuring after Angiosperms finally conquered forest biomes in late cretaceous. Dinosaurs diversity started dropping sharply about 5 ma before KT impact. What KT impact did is just greatly increased KT extinction that has already been going on. It happened for no external reasons, it is just cycles and transitions inside biosphere, that are part of its own evolution. For biosphere is just a enormously complex, nonlinear dynamic system, so freaking complex that climate compared to it is just a linear equation.
And just look at PT event on the graph – extinction rates skyrocketed on a straight yrend to hell already 30 million (!) years before proverbial PT event. Th PT event was just a final blow to the weakened biosphere. It is like a butterfly in chrysalis, being very weak before it turns into even stronger. Should Siberian traps have happened not during ‘chrysalis’ stage but elsewhere, the Life would not even notice.
Problem – on top of the Wild Guesses, Ludicrous Extrapolations, and Unimaginable Leaps of Logic of a magnitude that I would expect from my two-year old (after reading this, her fears that the thunderstorm would eat her cookies because there is lightning when Count von Count counts and the Count hangs around cookie monster seem perfectly rational).
This final problem is thus: Oceanic life is fine at a pH of 7.25. It’s not ideal, but the fish don’t start dissolving, and the corals don’t just die. They grow and live and breed just as normal.
I think I’ll watch Sesame Street. At least then I have some hope for the future.