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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richardscourtney says:
October 28, 2013 at 6:11 pm
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”
Such ignorant first it can NEVER be ad hom to state the simple scientifically proven truth. You keep flopping around but you have no interest in debate history or science. You simply wish to troll. So you tuck tail and run like a good socialist. Stop wasting space in this thread.
temp says:
October 28, 2013 at 6:26 pm
“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.”
I suspect this might have some bearing on the issue:
http://nypost.com/2013/10/08/us-adults-are-dumber-than-the-average-human/
especially when considered with respect to::
http://arxiv.org/pdf/1102.3931.pdf
temp says: “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.”
Whatever. So having a common army, that’s not socialism? How about the police, should each one of us have our own policeman (capitalism way) or should we band into societies called towns and pay policemen? And firemen, where are you on that? And roads, maybe those should be controlled by capitalists? They once were, tolls to get thru the Cumberland Gap. You are a socialist and you don’t even know it.
Now, I know where you guys stand on AGW, and for a second, only a second, hold in your mind that we might need to do something about it. Do you really thing that there is a purely Capitalistic idea that would force each and every person to reduce carbon use? Because I have never heard of one. So the solution will be some sort of socialism.
An extinction will liberate vast amounts of CO2. That is what fungi and other decomposers do. Interestingly, not long prior to that extinction, CO2 was running sort of low.
Pippen Kool
Most scientists reading this article would make a logical leap to thinking that higher CO2 levels make the planet warmer that it would be, and that would affect [O2] in the oceans.
When it snows, people appear on the streets wearing warm coats and hats. Any scientist would make the logical leap that putting on warm coats and hats causes it to snow.
It’s already happening, based upon changes in the biota:
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2013/sep/26/jellyfish-theyre-taking-over/?page=1
However, I blame sewage outfalls & fertilizer from farm field runoff more than I blame our friend, carbon dioxide.
Pippen Fool says:
So having a common army, that’s not socialism?
No, Fool.
How about the police, should each one of us have our own policeman (capitalism way) or should we band into societies called towns and pay policemen?
No, Fool.
And firemen, where are you on that? And roads, maybe those should be controlled by capitalists? They once were, tolls to get thru the Cumberland Gap. You are a socialist and you don’t even know it.
Wrong again, Fool.
The Austrian school and Frederic Bastiat explain it all, but some folks presume to know ‘facts’ that aren’t so.
Lookin’ at you, Pippen…
Hey, Pippen, two questions (the third one is rhetorical):
1. What happened to Poppen?
2. Is Nod your brother or your cousin?
It’s not surprising that you are a socialist. The overwhelming majority of AGW supporters are socialists (the Democrats in the U.S. are essentially socialists, now) and the overwhelming majority of anti-AGW people are NOT socialist. Why do you suppose that is?
*********************
re: my post above:
algaemoss.There’s probably a bogus “study” about algae, but I wasn’t thinking of it at the time. Now, why did I call “moss,” “algore”? Hm.
dbstealey says: “Frederic Bastiat explain it all”
“On the other hand, Bastiat himself declared that subsidy should be available, but limited: “under extraordinary circumstances, for urgent cases, the State should set aside some resources to assist certain unfortunate people, to help them adjust to changing conditions.”
Hmmm. So even Bastiat was a closet socialist. Cool. I mean, Kool. Sorry, dbstealey, you too are probably a socialist and you do not wish to know it. Do you have your own army? Or is it one I am paying for?
richardscourtney says:
October 28, 2013 at 3:14 pm
————————————————-
How else do you explain 1-in-1000 minds ignoring the lag of CO2 behind temperature where this can be resolved? For some, with paycheck and pension funded by taxes and tax-driven endowments, it is easy to say “it’s complicated.” IMHO, carbon-driven climate is the Lysenkoism of social democracy. Sorry we don’t agree.
Pippen Fool says:
“So even Bastiat was a closet socialist.”
You are a complete friggin’ idiot.
Word.
Get some common sense.
temp;
There are very few participants in this forum who have taught me as much science as richardscourtney. Few people have done as much work as he has to unmask the facade that masquerades as climate science. He has not only worked diligently to expose the bad science behind CAGW, he has done so publicly under his own name, and not just in this forum. You would do well to learn from him rather than alienate him, he has much to teach and his science is rock solid.
Yes, he’s a socialist. I’m not. You can’t get any more opposite the political spectrum from Richard than I am. But on matters of science, climate science in particular, there are few people for whom I have more respect than him.
There are warmists on both sides of the political spectrum, just as there are skeptics on both sides. It may interest you to know that the CAGW meme started not as a something being promoted by the left, but something that was promoted by the right. In fact, CAGW alarmism originated with one of the heroes of conservative value, Margaret Thatcher.
I love how they mention that oxygen is less soluble in warmer water, but somehow fail to mention that the same rule also applies to CO2. Interesting.
davidmhoffer,
I could not have said it better. I could not have even said it as well. You have expressed my thoughts exactly. Thanks for that.
I am not a Socialist. But I think most Socialists have their hearts in the right place. The problems come in when evil schemers try to take power for their own self aggrandizement.
Human nature must always be kept in check. As Niccolo Machiavelli noted in The Prince: “Men are evil, unless compelled to be good.”
@Janice Moore: “Perhaps, insane is the ONLY explanation… .”
Nawp, greenbacks are better.
@richardscourtney: Rather surprised you’re a Red.
@Poppen Kollar: Not surprised you’re a Watermelon
@temp: Not that Infrared-baiting isn’t good sport. But save it for a post on politics.
‘Til them let’s all have at the Slamecksans. No one can stand people in comfortable shoes. Amirite?
Vince says: October 28, 2013 at 8:10 pm
Bingo! Kind of puts a wet blanket on the ever-acidifying oceans. They can’t have it both ways.
Vince: “… but somehow fail to mention that the same rule also applies to CO2.”
“Hey Rocky, watch me pull a projection out of my hat!” It’s Climagic.
Vince says: “I love how they mention that oxygen is less soluble in warmer water, but somehow fail to mention that the same rule also applies to CO2. Interesting.”
But CO2 is much more soluble in water than O2: O2 just occupies intermolecular space; CO2 hydrates and dissolves into water. But you are correct; heat up your soda and see what happens…
In any case, fish don’t care about less CO2 in the water…
I’m with Bill Illis. It’s seems the available evidence indicates a gradually falling CO2 level around then, and no significant extinction at that time is apparent. Jonathan links to an Alberta paper that indicates it was significant, at least regionally, and totally caused by underwater volcanoes, but evidence doesn’t seem overwhelming. It certainly doesn’t seem to imply CO2 in any way. The lack of O2 in the water would seem readily explained as Jonathan and the Alberta paper indicate, and the UC researchers say only 5% of the ocean was affected. This just doesn’t seem significant, especially relative to today. Especially given our modern continent placement.
dbstealey says:
October 28, 2013 at 8:14 pm
———————————————
I would venture to say that almost all the participants in this discussion owe their scientific knowledge to state-sponsored education. I feel carbon-driven climate is a betrayal of that social good, with the corrosive effects already apparent.
I suggest socialists have their hearts in the same place as everyone else, centered in their self-interest. With almost all the opinion-shapers trained by state-sponsored education as well, that self-interest might seem “in the right place.” However, unlike the self-interest accepted by Adam Smith, orthodox self-interest is unconstrained by competition.
William McClenney says:
October 28, 2013 at 6:54 pm
“I suspect this might have some bearing on the issue:”
Well the first quote is from a german or frenchmen not sure… but also the euros are the ones who are pushing global warming terror… and the faulty logic behind it. They also tend to rig those tests in favor of said faulty logic as well.
Pippen Kool says:
October 28, 2013 at 7:01 pm
“Whatever. So having a common army, that’s not socialism? How about the police, should each one of us have our own policeman (capitalism way) or should we band into societies called towns and pay policemen? And firemen, where are you on that? And roads, maybe those should be controlled by capitalists? They once were, tolls to get thru the Cumberland Gap. You are a socialist and you don’t even know it.”
This is classic socialist failure of logic. Police/army by themselves are neither socialist nor capitalist. Its how those police are payed, recuited, what powers they have, who controls them that determines where on the scale they. For socialists police we can look they tend to be heavily controlled by the federal/top most part of the government. They can do whatever they want to whoever they want with little oversight. They are better armed then the population they “police”. They have huge long lists have stupid laws which they are eager to enforcement but have zero interest in “dangerous” crimes because that puts them in danger and tends to be little in the way of bribes and kick backs for them. As always on the scale the more abusive the police the more socialists they are.
“Now, I know where you guys stand on AGW, and for a second, only a second, hold in your mind that we might need to do something about it. Do you really thing that there is a purely Capitalistic idea that would force each and every person to reduce carbon use? Because I have never heard of one. So the solution will be some sort of socialism.”
This is classic socialist thinking here. In socialists ideology one must assume humans can never progress anymore for the most part. We must enter “stasis”, freezing our current “life” in order to “save it”. Socialists always see problems in terms of how to control things. Problem:We’re running out of resources.
Socialist fix: Bring about socialism… if that doesn’t work more socialism, as part of socialist we must ration our resources though not for the elite in the government.
Capitalist fix: We find or create more resources.
Peak oil, the population bomb, eugenics, global cooling, warming, etc are all classic socialists scares designed to “freeze” the human race. The only fix for things like eugenics and the populations bomb from a socialist perspective was to control the populations. Reduce usage(except by the socialist elite). Never does it cross the socialist mind to invent something or expand on what currently know.
Peak oil is a great display of that. We’ve according to socialists run out of oil every 10 years for the last 100 years. Yet we still have tons and tons of oil. Now in order to prevent oil usage we have government control over it. Your banned from drilling for oil because it releases CO2 and you’ll kill the planet. I always find it funny how were going to run out of oil any day now but yet those same people say we need to completely stop drilling for oil… classic socialists as work. The best pictures to sum of socialists at work, is where you see in the first one a productive farm with a government worker walking by to shut it down. The next picture you see a scientists in front of said farm(now a wild field) ranting and raving about how we have no more farm land left and we need population controls, rations and socialism or we’re all going to die. The farmer is standing in the crowd and says “We had lots of farm land until the the government you work for shut it all down”.
Socialism short term goals are always to cause problems which they can then “fix” by socialism.
A few points: first @richardscourtney – having myself suffered in a previous thread from your repeated assertions that I was a troll (accompanied by much bad language on your part when I asked you to cite some authority for your own assertions) may I remind you that Antony, with the mods as his gatekeepers, is our host here. You are a guest like everyone else – and it ill becomes a guest to tell other guests to “clear off” (or worse) in these pages. That is the prerogative of our host: if you wish to be free to do this you should start your own blog. Good luck with that.
And on this actual topic, somewhat amusingly (at least in hindsight!) there was also a “big stink” (or “great stink”) in London in summer 1858, almost at the start of the industrial era which was most definitely anthropogenic in nature – see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Stink
And saying “… associated with this event are high levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which are linked to elevated ocean and atmospheric temperatures” totally begs the question of cause and effect – not least that if temperatures rise this will inevitably cause an outgassing of the oceans, essentially as a feedback.
Bill Illis on October 28, 2013 at 5:11 pm
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.
These Marcott-Miller-Lyons deliberate misinformation paper ignore established geology and aim only for the media. The aim seems to be to replace the science of geology with a fictional AGW narrative.
It is important that the corpus of geological knowledge as well as other science pertaining to climate, is archived in several countries secretly by non-governmental entities, to protect this knowledge from a future crystallnacht of book-burning by ecofascist regimes.
davidmhoffer says:
October 28, 2013 at 8:06 pm
“temp;
There are very few participants in this forum who have taught me as much science as richardscourtney. Few people have done as much work as he has to unmask the facade that masquerades as climate science. He has not only worked diligently to expose the bad science behind CAGW, he has done so publicly under his own name, and not just in this forum. You would do well to learn from him rather than alienate him, he has much to teach and his science is rock solid.”
Which is all well in good but completely meaningless. He refusing to debate and just wants to cry… which is both perfectly fine and very socialist.
“Yes, he’s a socialist. I’m not. You can’t get any more opposite the political spectrum from Richard than I am. But on matters of science, climate science in particular, there are few people for whom I have more respect than him.” See above.
“There are warmists on both sides of the political spectrum, just as there are skeptics on both sides. It may interest you to know that the CAGW meme started not as a something being promoted by the left, but something that was promoted by the right. In fact, CAGW alarmism originated with one of the heroes of conservative value, Margaret Thatcher.”
Lot of myths here. First unless you think stalin was a moderate, thatcher is by no means “rightwing” she was mostly a centrist/center leftist with a few things where she was leftwing. As to socialists not believing in global warming this is not unexpected. Socialists only believe in the collective they want to get power and when they see their collective losing out to turn against the other collectives they have been working with. Classics are of course hitler and stalin but one can see it in many thing. Its why you always see socialists start out on the broad side and then purify themselves down. This of course means cutting off the more “fringe” groups in the collective. As the collective becomes more powerful more extreme purifying takes place aka genocide. The global warming movement has gotten to the point where it is starting the purging process which is why your seeing more people turn away. If they can continue to gain more and more people they will follow standard socialism 101 and start jailing people amass, then genocide if they can get near total power. It remains to be see if they will get that power.
Global warming started as a eugenics scare but was dropped… it like other socialist scares claims that OMG we’re all going to die unless you give us total control over everything.
I thought the end Cretaceous in general was a cooling period, this cooling accounting for the gradual demise of the dinosaurs (hot climate adapted) which was already established well before the Chixilub meteor impact 65 Myr ago.
But I forgot – thats old unfashionable Judeo-Christian honest logic with no place in today’s science. The correct party line now is that the dinosaurs demise was caused by humans and less dinosaur farts meant less greenhouse methane and thus cooling climate.