From the University of California – Riverside , and the department of sulfurous odors, comes this “it must be carbon dioxide” moment:
“Also associated with this event are high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which are linked to elevated ocean and atmospheric temperatures. Associated consequences include likely enhanced global rainfall and weathering of the continents, which further shifted the chemistry of the ocean.”
Of course, it couldn’t possibly be anything else but CO2 causing this, right?
Researchers quantify toxic ocean conditions during major extinction 93.9 million years ago
UC Riverside-led study points to an ancient oxygen-free and hydrogen sulfide-rich ocean that may foreshadow our future
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — Oxygen in the atmosphere and ocean rose dramatically about 600 million years ago, coinciding with the first proliferation of animal life. Since then, numerous short lived biotic events — typically marked by significant climatic perturbations — took place when oxygen concentrations in the ocean dipped episodically.
The most studied and extensive of these events occurred 93.9 million years ago. By looking at the chemistry of rocks deposited during that time period, specifically coupled carbon and sulfur isotope data, a research team led by University of California, Riverside biogeochemists reports that oxygen-free and hydrogen sulfide-rich waters extended across roughly five percent of the global ocean during this major climatic perturbation — far more than the modern ocean’s 0.1 percent but much less than previous estimates for this event.
The research suggests that previous estimates of oxygen-free and hydrogen sulfide-rich conditions, or “euxinia,” were too high. Nevertheless, the limited and localized euxinia were still sufficiently widespread to have dramatic effect on the entire ocean’s chemistry and thus biological activity.
“These conditions must have impacted nutrient availability in the ocean and ultimately the spatial and temporal distribution of marine life,” said team member Jeremy D. Owens, a former UC Riverside graduate student, who is now a postdoctoral scientist at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution. “Under low-oxygen environments, many biologically important metals and other nutrients are removed from seawater and deposited in the sediments on the seafloor, making them less available for life to flourish.”
“What makes this discovery particularly noteworthy is that we mapped out a landscape of bioessential elements in the ocean that was far more perturbed than we expected, and the impacts on life were big,” said Timothy W. Lyons, a professor of biogeochemistry at UCR, Owens’s former advisor and the principal investigator on the research project.
Study results appear online this week in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
Across the event 93.9 million years ago, a major biological extinction in the marine realm has already been documented. Also associated with this event are high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which are linked to elevated ocean and atmospheric temperatures. Associated consequences include likely enhanced global rainfall and weathering of the continents, which further shifted the chemistry of the ocean.
“Our work shows that even though only a small portion of the ocean contained toxic and metal-scavenging hydrogen sulfide, it was sufficiently large so that changes to the ocean’s chemistry and biology were likely profound,” Owens said. “What this says is that only portions of the ocean need to contain sulfide to greatly impact biota.”
For their analysis, the researchers collected seafloor mud samples, now rock, from multiple localities in England and Italy. They then performed chemical extraction on the samples to analyze the sulfur isotope compositions in order to estimate the chemistry of the global ocean.
According to the researchers, the importance of their study is elevated by the large amount of previous work on the same interval and thus the extensive availability of supporting data and samples. Yet despite all this past research, the team was able to make a fundamental discovery about the global conditions in the ancient ocean and their impacts on life.
“Today, we are facing rising carbon dioxide contents in the atmosphere through human activities, and the amount of oxygen in the ocean may drop correspondingly in the face of rising seawater temperatures,” Lyons said. “Oxygen is less soluble in warmer water, and there are already suggestions of such decreases. In the face of these concerns, our findings from the warm, oxygen-poor ancient ocean may be a warning shot about yet another possible perturbation to marine ecology in the future.”
A grant to Lyons from the National Science Foundation supported the study.
Owens and Lyons were joined in the study by UCR’s Steven M. Bates; Benjamin C. Gill at Virginia Tech. and a former Ph.D. student with Lyons; Hugh C. Jenkyns at the University of Oxford, the United Kingdom; Silke Severmann at Rutgers University, NJ, and a former postdoctoral researcher with Lyons; Marcel M. M. Kuypers at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Biology, Germany; and Richard G. Woodfine at British Petroleum, the United Kingdom.
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The only problems with this study are:
– there was no rise in CO2 levels at this time; and,
– there was no marine extinction event at this time.
Mr or Mrs Pippen Kool skipped his photosynthesis classes back in the day. He/She has no idea what this trace gas does to vegetation. My IMPRESSION is that he/she thinks it’s a life killer on all levels. We are doomed and it’s ‘unprecedented’ in a precedented sort of way.
Pippen read this. Please don’t remind me that growing plants DON’T produce oxygen. I am aware of this IPCC style fact. 🙂
This article is in reference to the Cenomanian-Turonian boundary event. This event is theorized to have been caused by oceanic volcanism (not mentioned in the research). There was also a great deal of crust formation (also not mentioned in the article, which would have had an impact on climate). In fact, many researchers point to the widespread volcanism of that period as the probably reason for the acidity of the oceans and the increase in crustal development.
This is fascinating because this article does two things: 1.) It does not address the volcanism, and 2.) this article clearly shows that CO2 rises and falls due to natural events.
While it may show that CO2 has a detrimental affect, it also shows that this is a natural occurrence of the Earth, demonstrating that there are natural cycles and natural variability to climate.
Anyone can read about the Cenomanian-Turonian boundary event and the volcanism of that period. For instance, here is a quote from an abstract: The timing of this boundary also coincides with large-scale volcanism from at least three large igneous provinces: the Caribbean and Ontong-Java oceanic plateaus and the Madagascar flood basalts.
Monseigneur Pippen, have you ever bothered to look???? This is the second time co2 levels have been so low. The only person telling steaming WHOPPERS here is you.
Ya know, we all keep wondering, “How in the WORLD can these ostensibly genuine scientists make such fools out themselves?” And we always come back to (aside from the insane ones): money.
Okay. Makes sense. BUT, WHY IN THE WORLD would you want to spend your days collecting mud and making a total fool of yourself in the eyes of the scientists you know have utter contempt for you when you could earn just as much selling used cars — or making payday loans — or being a telemarketer — and not make a public spectacle of yourself …. or have to go grubbing around in the MUD?!!
Perhaps, insane is the ONLY explanation… .
(Note: I’m only referring to the authors of such studies as the algae fraud and the above “study” — NOT to those cynically making profits off of these tools’ efforts.)
The just can’t let their failed gods go can they?
Karl Marx was right on the money…
Dr. James Hansen says that the oceans will boil and end up in the atmosphere if we burned all our fossil fuels. The IPCC says that man-made runaway global warming is not supported in the literature. Now we really are doomed. The End Is Nigh!
richardscourtney says:
October 28, 2013 at 5:00 pm
“I am anti-racist. I oppose genocide in any of its forms. And I am not a “nutbag” but am rational.
I am these things because I am a socialist.
Whereas you are a foul-mouthed anonymous troll trying to disrupt the thread with off-topic abuse. Clear off.
Richard”
Richard if you are truly a socialist then please do keep your well disproved propaganda to yourself.
It has been through history and continues to be proven daily by science that socialism falls within the bounds that I speak of. Only two types of people believe that socialism is not a racist genocidal nutbag ideology. Those who are ignorant of history and science and those who approve of the racist, genocidal nutbaggery. If you are simply an ignorant fool I would be happy to give you a science lesson. Though I have a feeling you plan to just launch your ad hom attacks and run away because both the ignorant and the approves know they can not defend the pro-racism,genocide, nutbag position they hold… so why don’t you tuck your tail and say you fought the good fight and run away as is the socialist standard.
The face of the planet upon which we exist has never been static, there is no ‘optimum’ level of anything which constitutes the surface upon which we presently exist. It has changed, is still changing and will continue to change.
Our ‘theories’ and ‘explanations’ proliferate but the planet blithely ignores all of these and continues to change at its own sweet pace and in directions at which we can only guess.
Just get used to the fact that, as far as this globule in space is concerned, we still know five eighths of eff all about what is going to happen tomorrow.
Correction.
The first paragraph in my last comment is from Dr. James Hansen and not from the IPCC.
Pippen Kool says:
“Good one. Are you trying to get your comment on the hotwhopper site?”
That is nothing but trolling.
Anonymous and offensive troll posting as temp:
I read your ignorant, untrue, and bigoted abuse at October 28, 2013 at 5:33 pm.
All your offensive lies are off topic. Stop it.
Richard
Arn’t they a yawn, yawn, yawn. even the UN is saying our recent bush fires are caused by global warming. Don’t they know some of our eucalypi, (gum trees) have oil in their leaves and have survived bush fires for thousands if not millions of years. yneed their seeds to germinate by being heated up. As I said yawn, yawn, yawn.
OMG!!!
It can happen anyway 🙁
What’s a H. sapiens sapiens to do at the half-precession old (and counting) Holocene????????
Pippen Kool:
Your post at October 28, 2013 at 4:41 pm was answered by Jimbo at October 28, 2013 at 5:21 pm. This link jumps to it
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2013/10/28/the-big-stink-93-9-million-years-ago-blame-co2/#comment-1459831
I only write to ask you what is the “hotwhopper site”? Is it SkS?
Richard
I wonder if they measured the selenium levels, given that volcanic sulphur always comes with selenium, but hypoxic H2S doesn’t come with H2Se.
I mean, the very best we can possibly achieve is to remove any possible, likely or sure effects of hominids on the late Holocene atmosphere/climate.
Do that and this http://lin.irk.ru/pdf/6696.pdf could happen, anyway!!
I mean what’s a hominid to do?
temp says:
October 28, 2013 at 5:33 pm
“Though I have a feeling you plan to just launch your ad hom attacks and run away because both the ignorant and the approves know they can not defend the pro-racism,genocide, nutbag position they hold… so why don’t you tuck your tail and say you fought the good fight and run away as is the socialist standard.”
“richardscourtney says:
October 28, 2013 at 5:38 pm
Anonymous and offensive troll posting as temp:
I read your ignorant, untrue, and bigoted abuse at October 28, 2013 at 5:33 pm.
All your offensive lies are off topic. Stop it.
Richard”
I swear its like clockwork… if only computer models could as accurately forecast the weather/climate as someone with a minor education in logic and sociology can predict a socialist.
We’d be able to forecast the future of the planet on a second by second time scale for thousands of years.
My issue is the refusal of many to understand geologic time frames compared to human existence. Here is a link that shows if the history of the planet were 24 hours, humans would have showed up around the last last minute before midnight. http://flowingdata.com/2012/10/09/history-of-earth-in-24-hour-clock/
While understanding what happened 93 million years ago may be a fun academic exercise, does it directly effect us today, and if so, what can/could we do about it?
I have asked this question before with none answering: Just how far out into the future are we supposed to concern ourselves with the environment? What is the “magic date” to call it quits for wasting our current $$$?
Some thoughts: How many windmills would it take to cause changes in the worlds (maybe regional??) wind patterns? Could we wipe out all avian species doing so? What would it do to food crop growth?
Same for solar panels, at what % coverage would it negatively effect global temperatures?
2008 study from University of Albert says volcanic eruptions did it and actually cause CO2 to decrease, and produced a major source of oil.
According to their research, the eruptions preceded the mass extinction by a geological blink of the eye. The event occurred within 23 thousand years of the extinction and the underwater volcanic eruption had two consequences: first, nutrients were released, which allowed mass feeding and growth of plants and animals. When these organisms died, their decomposition and fall towards the sea floor caused further oxygen depletion, thereby compounding the effects of the volcanic eruption and release of clouds of carbon dioxide in to the oceans and atmosphere.
An odd side-effect of the mass extinction, the result of the anoxic event caused as an indirect result of the underwater volcanic eruptions, was that temperatures and carbon dioxide levels on the Earth’s surface actually dropped.
http://www.astrobio.net/pressrelease/2817/extinction-followed-eruption
Damn…i need to get me one of them grants..
anonymous and offensive troll posting as temp:
re your post at October 28, 2013 at 5:59 pm.
It is not an ad hom. to tell an anonymous liar to stop trolling with off topic and personal abuse which is intended to deflect a thread.
In the unlikely event that you have a comment pertinent to the subject of this thread then I will answer it. Otherwise, I shall ignore any more of your egregious abuse.
Richard
BW2013 says:
October 28, 2013 at 6:02 pm
“I have asked this question before with none answering: Just how far out into the future are we supposed to concern ourselves with the environment? What is the “magic date” to call it quits for wasting our current $$$?”
With all due respect to those who disagree, anything paleo older than the closing of the Panama Seaway, or pre-Mid Pleistocene Transition (MPT) really does not relate well with Holocene climate. We may look at all manner of oceanography, but until the two major oceans ceased communication at the equator about 5 million years ago (more or less), things have been as they presently are, still cooling off from the PETM (Paleocene Eocene Thermal Maximum) but with the range greater since the mid-Brunhes event some 400 kya.
Our concern with the near future climate environment comes down to just three choices:
“1. Anthropogenic Global Warming/Catastrophic AGW. World will continue to warm, perhaps catastrophically, as a result of GHG emissions.
“IPCC AR4 worst case estimate for sea level by 2100 is +0.59 meters amsl. End Eemian achieved, at least, 10 times this (if we use +6 meters amsl), almost an order of magnitude more if we use the +45m estimate. End Holsteinian achieved 36 times this predicted excursion (using 21.3 meters amsl), covering the low and high ends of natural, end extreme interglacial, climate noise.
“The Signal to Noise Ratio (SNR) range for AGW predictions to 2100 come in at a range of 0.1 to 0.03 compared to “normal” end extreme interglacial climate noise. Worst case projections are therefore woefully not anomalous (at best 10% of natural noise), with the projected AGW/CAGW signal scoring a measly 3-10% of normal end extreme interglacial climate noise levels.
“Such a signal will be difficult to distinguish.
“2. Holocene Interglacial (Loutre and Berger, 2003) will “go-long” (perhaps another 50,000 years), outlasting every previous interglacial in the past 5 million years.
“With the end of MIS 11 full interglacial conditions and the start of ice accumulation estimated to have occurred at 395 kyr BP (de Abreu et al., 2005; Ruddiman 2005a, 2007), the precessional alignment would suggest that the Holocene is nearing its end, while the obliquity alignment would suggest it has another 12 000 years to run its course.” (Tzedakis, 2010)
“In essence, this alignment represents a synchronization of the obliquity signal instead of precession, which according to Masson-Delmotte et al. (2006) may be more appropriate, because of the role of obliquity changes in triggering deglaciation especially during intervals of weak precessional variations, as is the case for MIS 11 and 1.” (Tzedakis, 2010)
“3. Holocene is a tad over half-a precession cycle old now. If a precession match, it might be “winding-up” to “wind-down”, like all previous end extreme interglacials.
The possibility consequently exists that at perhaps precisely the right moment near the end-Holocene, the latest iteration of the genus Homo unwittingly stumbled on the correct atmospheric GHG recipe to perhaps ease or delay the transition into the next glacial.”
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/03/16/the-end-holocene-or-how-to-make-out-like-a-madoff-climate-change-insurer/
As regards the ‘magic date’, you may wish to consider just how fast climate really does change:
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/01/05/on-%E2%80%9Ctrap-speed-acc-and-the-snr/
I hope this answers your questions.
William
richardscourtney says: “I am these things because I am a socialist.”
Really? I am impressed. You are the last person I would have expected.
Samuel C Cogar says: “a major biological extinction in the marine realm …… then one should expect an increase in atmospheric CO2. The rotting biomass generating CO2 and the lack of biomass for converting it to other products would result in a greater outgassing of CO2 from the ocean.”
Actually, the reason there is a boundary in the rock is that much of that dead anoxic biomass lined the bottom of the ocean and never went anywhere. I think the reason for the raising of the [CO2], it’s more the lack of algae…
Latitude says: “most scientists reading this article would make a logical leap to thinking that a lot of dead crap didn’t produce O2, the anoxic layer in marine sediments moved to the surface, and released hydrogen sulfide”
That is only where the event happened (although I like my explanation better); I thought they said it was in a relatively small area. In the rest of the ocean, the [dissolved O2] is a function of temp. Higher temp = lower [O2].
To BW2013
The reality is they pick of course whatever time scale best suits the propaganda they want to push at the moment and then say that timescale is useless when it doesn’t support the propaganda. They also like to redefine “global” as meaning only the arctic or only the Northern Hemisphere… Mann’s hockey stick is a great display of the “its global when we say it global” data redefining.
Also you have to understand basic socialist ideology. Socialists are taught that socialism is the must always happen end result and that once socialism happens it fixes everything. These people have no concept of the future other then maintaining the current present. Its why technology advances at the pace of nothingness in socialism countries outside of when they are stealing it from someone else. In the end the only way socialists see a way to fix a problem is with more socialism… Lysenko is a great display of socialist science where no matter the result it can never be that the ideology is wrong… its always someone or something fault normally blamed on some mythic capitalist plot. Global warming is the same way. The models are wrong because of some big oil capitalism plot, the planet is warming because of some capitalist plot, capitalist are ruining the planet because of X(insert global cooling, warming, overpopulation, blacks, etc) and thus we can only save the planet through socialism.
Yes its crazy but they think this. They even admit it such as when some german said that even if global warming is showed to be false were still doing “the right thing”.
‘Regardless of whether or not scientists are wrong on global warming, the European Union is pursuing the correct energy policies even if they lead to higher prices, Europe’s climate commissioner Connie Hedegaard’s has said.’
“Former U.S. Senator Timothy Wirth: ‘We’ve got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing, in terms of economic policy and environmental policy.’
Quotes like these are common place because these people know it doesn’t matter if global warming is real or not what matters is the march total socialism by any means necessary.