From Newcastle University
Global cooling as significant as global warming
A “cold snap” 116 million years ago triggered a similar marine ecosystem crisis to those witnessed in the past as a result of global warming, according to research published today in Nature Geoscience.
The international study involving experts from the universities of Newcastle, UK, Cologne, Frankfurt and GEOMAR-Kiel, confirms the link between global cooling and a crash in the marine ecosystem during the mid-Cretaceous greenhouse period.
It also quantifies for the first time the amplitude and duration of the temperature change. Analysing the geochemistry and micropaleontology of a marine sediment core taken from the North Atlantic Ocean, the team show that a global temperature drop of up to 5oC resulted in a major shift in the global carbon cycle over a period of 2.5 million years.
Occurring during a time of high tectonic activity that drove the breaking up of the super-continent Pangaea, the research explains how the opening and widening of new ocean basins around Africa, South America and Europe created additional space where large amounts of atmospheric CO2 was fixed by photosynthetic organisms like marine algae. The dead organisms were then buried in the sediments on the sea bed, producing organic, carbon rich shale in these new basins, locking away the carbon that was previously in the atmosphere.
The result of this massive carbon fixing mechanism was a drop in the levels of atmospheric CO2, reducing the greenhouse effect and lowering global temperature.
This period of global cooling came to an end after about 2 million years following the onset of a period of intense local volcanic activity in the Indian Ocean. Producing huge volumes of volcanic gas, carbon that had been removed from the atmosphere when it was locked away in the shale was replaced with CO2 from the Earth’s interior, re-instating a greenhouse effect which led to warmer climate and an end to the “cold snap”.
The research team say this study highlights how global climate is intrinsically linked to processes taking place in the earth’s interior at million year time scales and that these processes can modify ecospace for marine life, driving evolution.
Current research efforts tend to concentrate on global warming and the impact that a rise of a few degrees might have on past and present day ecosystems. This study shows that if global temperatures swing the other way by a similar amount, the result can be just as severe, at least for marine life.
However, the research team emphasise that the observed changes of the earth system in the Cretaceous happened over millions of years, rather than decades or centennial, which cannot easily be related to our rapidly changing modern climate conditions.
“As always it’s a question of fine balance and scale,” explains Thomas Wagner, Professor of Earth Systems Science at Newcastle University, and one of the leaders of this study.
“All earth system processes are operating all the time and at different temporal and spatial scales; but when something upsets the balance – be it a large scale but long term natural phenomenon or a short and massive change to global greenhouse gases due to anthropogenic activity – there are multiple, potential knock-on effects on the whole system.
“The trick is to identify and quantify the initial drivers and consequences, which remains an ongoing challenge in climate research.”
50°C cooling?!! Did someone use a small ‘oh’ for [alt]0176 ?
Too much of the effects of climate change are rather esoteric.
It’s all about food !
“Global cooling as significant as global warming”
I’ll take a two degree uptick to a drop of two degrees any day.
One lengthens the growing season the other shortens it. Guess which is better?
“… a similar marine ecosystem crisis to those witnessed in the past as a result of global warming”
I’m not aware of any such crises. Can anyone educate me?
@Icarus62
“The greenhouse effect is well-established physics so this study naturally builds on that knowledge….”
Well established physics for a controlled environment inside a bell jar, but not for a dynamically changing and chaotic ocean/atmosphere system, which current, real-time observations are now revealing.
@- Bill Illis
“Here is Temp versus CO2 from 170 million years ago to 100 million years ago. Nothing happened at 116 Mya and CO2 was consistently between 700 ppm to 3,000 ppm over this period.”
http://s7.postimg.org/h3nvbh5cb/Temp_CO2_160_100_Mya.png
You have labeled the temperature estimates on your graph as derived from ice core dO18.
But the ice cores only go back around 1 million years, not 160million, the dO18 data you reference is sediment data.
That has problems of indicating the local temperature, not the global, the time resolution is poor and it relies on computer modelling of the water-ice balance to ‘correct’ the temperature as the greater the amount of ice the greater the adjustment in the dO18 to temperature conversion.
The data on past CO2 levels is also rather less than robust. It too relies on modelling and has a poor temporal resolution. There are also two other correction or factors that need to be included, the state of the Milankovitch cycle and the resultant distribution of solar energy and the change in solar luminosity over time.
That CO2 IS the main factor causing temperature changes is a result of the measured physical properties of CO2 and the radiative transfer equations. Both of these were discovered, understood and established long before computer modelling or any supposed Lysenkoist hoax could be underway. The absorptive properties of CO2 were measured around the time of Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species’ the radiative transfer equations in the mid fifties as part of military research into heat detection of missiles. The certainty and consensus that CO2 increases warm the climate is far stronger than the 97% quoted for AGW in general.
During the mid-Cretaceous period co2 was 2 to 4 times higher than today. Life on Earth perished, the oceans boiled, corals became bleached, the oceans steamed with acid and triggered galloping runaway warming.
@Jimbo
“During the mid-Cretaceous period co2 was 2 to 4 times higher than today. Life on Earth perished, the oceans boiled, corals became bleached, the oceans steamed with acid and triggered galloping runaway warming.”
If true, then that amount would be 800 to 1600 ppm, still less than one to two tenths of one percent of the atmosphere. I’m doubtful that such a concentration, in and of itself, would be responsible for the oceans boiling and for runaway warming.
Complete alarmist nonsense.
The result of this massive carbon fixing mechanism was a drop in the levels of atmospheric CO2, reducing the greenhouse effect and lowering global temperature
How does CO2 at ambient temperature emit more radiation than air at ambient temperature?
Surely the radiation balance isn’t changed by doubling or reducing CO2.
@Jimbo
I am waiting for at least one study to appear that actually describes how thousands of species became extinct due to runaway global warming during a past geological period. I wonder if it will ever appear.
Interesting work. Good post.
Izen,
Your problem is that because the optical and radiative transfer properties of CO2 are well understood does not mean its behavior in the system is.
Just more naturegeoscience.spam in the tired formula. A very interesting time in tectonic history nonetheless.
Geoff Withnell says:
June 17, 2013 at 4:52 am
” the research explains how the opening and widening of new ocean basins around Africa, South America and Europe created additional space where large amounts of atmospheric CO2 was fixed by photosynthetic organisms like marine algae.”
Am I missing something, or didn’t the breakup of Pangaea just result in several ocean basins of about the same area as the single ocean that existed previously?
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My thoughts, exactly, Geoff. The breakup of Pangaea surely created new shoreline, but increasing the amount of ocean? if new ocean had been created to affect the CO2 content, then new water would have needed to be added to the world. This mechanism is breaking down.
They took information that tended to discount AGW and tortured it into an argument regarding AGW. Pathetic. And brings into question the mental qualifications of these researchers to ‘research’.
Climate science, as perfected by the Team, is performed as follows. Descide on your outcome and them figure out how to get there with the patchy, inconsistent and degraded proxy data. The “Trick” ( tm) is to splice anything on that you need to get the result you want. Unfortunate turn of phrase in the last paragraph. But then how good is 100 million year old data?? Tricks indeed.
Bill Illis says:
June 17, 2013 at 5:37 am
This did not happen.
Srewart Pid says:
June 17, 2013 at 5:07 am
This blurb on the new paper can give the impression Pangaea broke up around 116 MYA in a single event and that is very far from the truth. I don’t know if the actual paper is also misleading but for clarification here is a summary of the action:
There were three major phases in the break-up of Pangaea. The first phase began in the Early-Middle Jurassic (about 175 Ma), when Pangaea began to rift from the Tethys Ocean in the east to the Pacific in the west, ultimately giving rise to the supercontinents Laurasia and Gondwana.
…
The second major phase in the break-up of Pangaea began in the Early Cretaceous (150–140 Ma), when the minor supercontinent of Gondwana separated into multiple continents (Africa, South America, India, Antarctica, and Australia). About 200 Ma, the continent of Cimmeria, as mentioned above (see “Formation of Pangaea”), collided with Eurasia.
…
The third major and final phase of the break-up of Pangaea occurred in the early Cenozoic (Paleocene to Oligocene). Laurasia split when North America/Greenland (also called Laurentia) broke free from Eurasia, opening the Norwegian Sea about 60–55 Ma. The Atlantic and Indian Oceans continued to expand, closing the Tethys Ocean.
It also strikes me as strange (well not really) that CO2 gets top billing and ocean current changes / new oceans & their effect on climate don’t rate a mention.
Thanks Bill and Sreward for solid facts to counter this despicable propaganda.
That so-called “scientists” can brush aside decades of painstaking research and foist this story on the media of CO2 driving climate change without any factual basis, is nothing short of criminal.
I don’t want to sound hysterical here but it is just breath-taking how such research starts with the conclusion and works backward – they know implicitly that temperature change can ONLY be caused by CO2 so the role of the discussion section is simply to make a conjecture as to how the cooling was CO2 driven – a conjecture immediately seized on by the media as peer-reviewed consensus and settled science. No other possible factors influencing climate, such as the elephant in the room – ocean deep circulation – are even mentioned.
In the light of many previous comments by Bill Illis on the dominant and decisive role of ocean circulation on global temperatures – such as the establishment of the circum-polar current as the cause of the current cold period – it is very obvious here that the widening south Atlantic in the mid-Cretaceous established Arctic to Antarctic Atlantic circulation for the first time, which must have had a profound effect on global circulation and temperature. The rift between Africa and South America started earlier than 116 MYa, but 116 MYa might have been the time when the deep ocean connection between north and south Atlantic became large enough to allow significant deep ocean circulation.
The dance of the continents is nicely animated in this youtube video.
The humorous aspect of this entire discussion is that icarus62, izen and Ryan would buy this nonsense hook, line and sinker. Perfect demonstration of the critical thinking skills of true believers.
A change of 50 degrees C, eh? See paragraph 3. That equates to 90 degrees Fahrenheit; thus, our current 78 degrees F here in Virginia would have changed to -12 degrees F. How much faith do they have that the causes they have identified would produce that effect, in that quantity? I have deep reservations about that–indeed, about all of the estimates these people seem so sure of with regard to past temperatures and climatic conditions. I do not mean the well-documented warmth of the Medieval Warm Period, nor the well-recorded cold of the Little Ice Age; those periods fall well into accepted human recorded history and have, in addition to written notations, various markers and signs in the environment (Greenland burial grounds now bound up in permafrost, vineyards in Scotland, etc.). To what extent do we actually trust numbers extrapolated from partial, fragmentary, and to some extent conjectural data? For me, that extent is quite limited.
” it is very obvious here that the widening south Atlantic in the mid-Cretaceous established Arctic to Antarctic Atlantic circulation for the first time,”
Um, I think you might be forgetting about the Panthalassic Ocean covering the rest of the planet.
Bob says:
June 17, 2013 at 4:05 am
“Marine Ecosystem” = ocean? All climate in terms of “carbon”? They have all the right jargon and climate correct wording without quantifying the CO2 losses and gains.
correct, the right jargon and correct wording
Srewart Pid says:
June 17, 2013 at 5:07 am
It also strikes me as strange (well not really) that CO2 gets top billing and ocean current changes / new oceans & their effect on climate don’t rate a mention.
exactly. If we would have for instance Antarctica packed together with Australia we would have a total different climate. How can so called scientists go over it and try to blame all on CO2? When we know there is no correlation between CO2 and historical temperature on the scale of millions of years?
This “study” is at the same level with the killing of the farting megafauna causing the Younger Dryas study, the Genghis Khan green lord study and the conquistadores causing Little Ice Age…=> very difficult to be any lower.
The original article has it as five degrees centigrade. “5oC” is a typo.
“Why do these academics continue to claim carbon dioxide must be the cause of every global temperature change?”
Huh? here the cause is
“Occurring during a time of high tectonic activity that drove the breaking up of the super-continent Pangaea, the research explains how the opening and widening of new ocean basins around Africa, South America and Europe created additional space where large amounts of atmospheric CO2 was fixed by photosynthetic organisms like marine algae.”
“the” cause is never simply C02. As we know from fundamental physics is you add C02 you will end up with a warmer world, provided other forcings stay roughly at the same levels. If you decrease c02 you will end up with a cooler world, provided other forcings stay the same.
For example, if you decreased C02 but increased solar output, cooling or warming would depend on which was the greater forcing.
So the cause here isnt simply C02, but starts with tectonic activity and then includes marine life.
remember what skeptics say.. the climate is complex.. that C02 plays a role should come as no surprise. Neither should it be a surprise that marine life plays a role.
Steven Mosher says:
June 17, 2013 at 12:08 pm
So the cause here isnt simply C02, but starts with tectonic activity and then includes marine life.
remember what skeptics say.. the climate is complex.. that C02 plays a role should come as no surprise. Neither should it be a surprise that marine life plays a role.
As in your link: “created additional space where large amounts of atmospheric CO2 was fixed by photosynthetic organisms like marine algae.”
“The result of this massive carbon fixing mechanism was a drop in the levels of atmospheric CO2, reducing the greenhouse effect and lowering global temperature.”
Again without quantifying what drop of CO2 and what drop of global temperature – where is any other reason for the temperature drop Steven in the article?
“This period of global cooling came to an end after about 2 million years following the onset of a period of intense local volcanic activity in the Indian Ocean. Producing huge volumes of volcanic gas, carbon that had been removed from the atmosphere when it was locked away in the shale was replaced with CO2 from the Earth’s interior, re-instating a greenhouse effect which led to warmer climate and an end to the “cold snap”.”
The end is again thought to have been done all alone by the “volcanic gas” – where here CO2 is ment again.
So it goes only about CO2 leading the temperature in the article Steven, but pls point out where other reasons for temperature are said, I might have missed those…
CO2 played a much more minor role then some climate scientists would like to make us believe. One of the arguments of skeptics is the geological record, that we clearly know and show, where data is available and it does not have any correlation between temperature and CO2 as you also know.
Such articles – without any science in them – allow for speculations and are used as “proof” that the skeptics are not right in geology.
As there is no quantification, no science in the article skeptics cannot rebut it, as there is nothing to rebut, just speculations. There is no science in it.
“global temperature drop of up to 5oC “, really?
Is there a ocean floor that is 2 million years old?
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Earth_seafloor_crust_age_poster.gif
ooops, sorry, should have read, or at least scanned, the comments before mine.
“My thoughts, exactly, Geoff. The breakup of Pangaea surely created new shoreline, but increasing the amount of ocean? if new ocean had been created to affect the CO2 content, then new water would have needed to be added to the world. This mechanism is breaking down.”
The paper makes no claim about increasing global ocean area.