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.
Just increased volcanic activity alone would have lowered oxygen levels in & warmed the seas, without the need to invoke the magic gas. CO2 might have played some role, but then as now, it’s not the be all & end all of climatic fluctuations.
There does seem to have been a minor extinction of marine invertebrates, perhaps 20-30% of species, at the Cenomanian-Turonian boundary. The possible dinosaur & marine reptile extinctions I cited above are, as noted, less firmly dated.
Associated consequences include likely enhanced global rainfall
Is that the “consensus” opinion now? What happened to the permanent droughts?
Analyses of ancient ice cores show 390 ppm to be the highest atmospheric concentration of CO2 during the last 10,000 years. http://climal.com/climate-change-facts.php
James says:
October 29, 2013 at 11:54 am
And yet for most of the past 10,000 years it has been warmer than now, & the three to five thousand year downtrend in temperature continues. It was also much warmer during prior interglacials of the last 500,000 years, with CO2 perhaps no higher than 330 ppm.
richardscourtney says:
October 29, 2013 at 2:27 am
“No “ostentation”. There is no need. Your post is simply more of the trolling ad hom. typical of all your posts. Your post is not from behind the cowardly screen of anonymity provided by the similar abuse from Pippen Kool, temp, DitkH and TimC, but you chose to “follow on” from them.
You guys are frightened to discuss the paper and use your barrage of obnoxious abuse against me to deflect from the damage to the fundamental assumption of AGW which I explained in my post at ”
Talk about classic socialist/collective display. You label anyone who hides in “anonymity” as not worth talking too…. just like you do to blacks, whites or any of a host of other collectives. They must be held as nothing or less then whole because I deem their collective so. You can not debate the facts and instead simply try to talk over others and shout them down. The only person who is scared is you… scared that people will wake up to the reality that AGW is nothing more then a classic socialists gambit. This is why you are trying so hard to talk about the other aspects of the paper and focus away from the socialist motives it tries to support.
M Courtney says:
October 29, 2013 at 2:31 am
“It is strange that a paper on ocean chemistry leads so directly to an accusation that 25% of the EU is racist (195 out of 766 seats in the EU Parliament).
A peculiar leap of the imagination; very offensive, of course, but entertaining in a Bedlam way.”
Alot more then 195 ppl in the EU parliament are racist nutbags… probably closer to the 500 range.
richardscourtney says:
“I was driven from the blogs of Jo Nova and Judith Curry by troll attacks of me. On those blogs, as in this WUWT thread, it became impossible for me to address the science because my time was consumed by defending from irrelevant and abusive attacks of me.”
O they scare the poor little socialist away…. why because god forbid you have to debate your positions and use science in areas that you consider untouchable religious faith? Or did they ban you? Censor you? Somehow I get the feeling that it was the religious faith issue.
“I left WUWT earlier this year and returned after some months only because several people pressed me to. If threads are disrupted by my presence – as this thread has been – then this would ensure that my continuing in attempts to contribute to WUWT would be self defeating.”
Really who banned/censored you? I get the feeling it was more a “put up or shut up” type pressure… wasn’t it. Defend you position and stop being a socialist coward and claiming everyone out to get me.
“But my presence does demonstrate the falsehood of the assertion that WUWT is a ‘front’ for right-wing political extremism.”
My aren’t we an arrogant self important b******. The only people who consider WUWT “rightwing political extremists” are far-left extremists who believe anyone who doesn’t support socialists through oppression is a rightwing extremists. Anyone reasonable person knows that WUWT is very centrists and while yes it is not leaning right slightly because of all the fanatical socialists attacking it. They like all collectivist don’t care a single things about whats be said… they label anyone who get in the way of the socialists utopia as the enemy and thus must be ruthless oppressed. The fact you put stock in their views and feel the need to “counter-balance” theirs views just proves how extremists you are.
You care the one that choose to start trolling you could have simply ignored R Taylor post. Instead you decided to label him off and attack him. I defended in as was the proper and scientific thing to do. You refused engage in anything but troll attacks and classic socialists labeling. Besides “anonymity” should my views also be discounted because I’m african-american? Seems so. Socialists/collectivists group people together as approved or disapproved groups. Those groups change all the time… such as its not “in vogue” with socialists to group people into “races” anymore after that whole eugenics/WW2 event.
Doesn’t make you any less racist just means you try to label/group as something else. Either defend your position or ignore people attacking your religion… Don’t go around trolling people and then whining when someone asks you to defend your position.
william says:
October 29, 2013 at 6:32 am
“Temp and Richard
I live in the USA. Although we embrace capitalism here, it is a socialist country that redistributes wealth on a massive scale. I dont know where you live but my gut says that we are all socialists now and the sooner we drop the name calling the sooner we’ll all get along.”
Yes the US is and has been a socialist country for a good number of years now… however socialists never “get along” with anyone. They will always start the purging once they have enough power. This is just science and history 101.
James:
At October 29, 2013 at 11:54 am you say
Yes, they do, but the stomata data show much higher values. This is a good summary of the differences.
http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/stomata.html
It says
There are reasons to dispute both the ice core and the stomata indications, but there are more reasons to dispute the ice core data than the stomata data.
For example, the ice takes decades to solidify (the IPCC says 83 years for Epica) and is porous fern until it does. During that time air is pumped in and out of the fern by air pressure variations and this mixes the air in the fern. This means the temporal resolution of the ice cores is decades (the effect is similar to conducting an 83 year running mean on data for individual years). The longest measurement time series for atmospheric CO2 measurements is from Mauna Loa and began in 1958 (i.e. it is less than 55 years) and is for individual years so cannot be directly compared to the ice core data. Stomata data is for individual years.
Richard
richard-
“It pleases me that we see the paper under discussion has importance and for the same reasons.”
I agree, the topic itself is very important and any results could be so easily misconstrued, now to see if it’s going under the paywall. Richard, I read nearly everthing you write, have looked up your former experiences with the crew at CRU, and basically, I just try to stay out of your way! You have your finger on the pulse and the people personally involved than myself. I’m usually just hawking the physics side that should be correct and properly interpreted, since it clearly is not, and so many others more qualified than myself know that also, however, I do have a few decades of studying that area on the side so that’s usually my only input. Need to refresh myself a bit on buffers.
temp:
re your obnoxious bloviation at October 29, 2013 at 12:39 pm.
How many more times do you need to be told? Your offensive and off topic trolling is not wanted.
CLEAR OFF!!
Richard
temp;
richardscourtney has posted several rather detailed discussions of the science which you have ignored and instead blustered on about socialism. Do you want to discuss the science? Or not?
richardscourtney says:
October 29, 2013 at 12:57 pm
“Firn” for “fern”? Kind of fun to type.
milodonharlani:
Thanks for your correction of my spelling that you provide in your post at October 29, 2013 at 1:12 pm.
I am very poor at proof reading [my] own typing: I am apt to ‘see’ what I intended to write and not what I did. So, I appreciate all such corrections.
Richard
The solubility of oxygen in sea water is decreased by less than 10% with a 5-degree C increase in temperature.
Now how did CO2 cause the extinction?
richardscourtney says:
October 29, 2013 at 1:51 pm
Same as everyone else when proofing his or her own work.
Spell check is of no use when the incorrect orthography is in itself a valid word spelled correctly.
How can you claim temperature rise is possible due to any gases? Gases as fluids help to cool down by convection method of heat transmission (elementary level science), likewise water can extinguish fire by absorbing heat, thus lowering temperature. Click on my name for further explanations for solutions to CC and power crisis.
Dev;
If that’s how you understand fire extinguishment by water, the last place I would/will ever click for a solution to anything is your name. {Shudder} Clue: magnesium strip burning underwater.
I wonder if Mg can burn without oxygen and form MgO.
M Simon says:
October 29, 2013 at 5:14 am
Solar cells or coal? Want power when the sun doesn’t shine? Windmills or nuclear? Want power when the wind doesn’t blow (enough)?
——————–
Power providers call that “On Demand Power”, meaning when you demand it, they provide it. And you pay a premium rate for that service.
There are hundreds of facilities that require “On Demand Power” and cannot function reliably without it.
You can not produce aluminum and steel via use of “green” energy. Their required “On Demand Power” source must be either hydro-electric, fossil fuel or nuclear because they “operate” 24/7/365 and their power requirements are horrendous.
The world economy shuts down if aluminum and steel production shuts down.
richardscourtney says:
October 29, 2013 at 9:16 am
But the natural sequestration processes do NOT sequester all the CO2 emissions (both natural and anthropogenic) of each year. If they did then there would not be a rise. This leads to the important question; i.e.
Why don’t the natural sequestration processes sequester all the CO2 emissions of each year when their dynamics indicate they can?
———————
Richard, I told you before that you are wrong about that. And that’s when you called my commentary “ranting and delusional”.
The FACT is that natural sequestration processes DO sequester all the CO2 emissions (both natural and anthropogenic) of each year. If they DIDN’T, then the measured atmospheric CO2 ppm quantities would NEVER decrease.
But they do DECREASE, ………… the measured atmospheric CO2 ppm quantities decrease on an average of 6 ppm every year, year in and year out, …. and have consistentely been doing that ever since ppm measurements have been made at Mona Loa.
—————————–
richardscourtney says:
October 29, 2013 at 9:16 am
The six models which each provide that indication are three models which each assumes a natural cause of the change and three which each assumes the anthropogenic CO2 emission is the cause of the change.
————–
Your models are FUBAR because your input data quantities are SISO ….. and you PRE-DETERMINED (assumed) that one or the other was “the cause”.
You “stacked-the-deck” with ‘wild’ cards and then claimed to have “won”.
milodonharlani says:
October 29, 2013 at 10:49 am
There does seem to have been a minor extinction of marine invertebrates, perhaps 20-30% of species, at the Cenomanian-Turonian boundary. The possible dinosaur & marine reptile extinctions I cited above are, as noted, less firmly dated.
—————————————————-
Its funny how reduced oxygen in the ocean can be responsible for the extinction of air-breathing reptiles who evolved to exist in the ocean. They didn’t have gills like fish. They were air-breathers like whales and seals.
The dinosaurs and marine reptiles who became extinct at this time were just replaced by similar animals from the same family and/or niche. Up to 1,000 species of dinosaurs went extinct before the Chiczulub impact. Natural process and we don’t need to invoke declining CO2 (pretending it to be rising CO2) for their demise.
Samuel C Cogar:
I am replying to your post at October 30, 2013 at 3:51 am which quotes statements I made in this thread at October 29, 2013 at 9:16 am and addresses each quoted statement in turn.
This reply adopts your method by quoting my statement which you quote, then quoting your response, and then providing my answer. And I do this in turn for every part of your post.
I wrote
You have replied
Your responses were “ranting and delusional” and your response I quote here does not rant but is delusional.
If the total emissions of CO2 to the air equaled the total sequestration of CO2 from the air in each year then there would be no change to the CO2 in the air over a year.
But the CO2 in the air increases from year to year. Therefore, the emissions are greater than the sequestrations each year. Of course, some CO2 is created in the air by e.g. oxidation of methane, but the methane emission is counted as part of the natural CO2 emission.
You are completely deluded when you say, “the measured atmospheric CO2 ppm quantities decrease on an average of 6 ppm every year, year in and year out, …. and have consistentely been doing that ever since ppm measurements have been made at Mona Loa”. The Mauna Loa measurements show an increase – NOT, as you claim, a decrease – in atmospheric CO2 concentration: click this link and see for yourself
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
I wrote
You have replied
That is completely ridiculous. WE “CLAIMED” TO HAVE LOST.
We produced six models to determine if we could discern if there was a predominantly natural or a predominantly anthropogenic cause of the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration. We assumed that a single effect dominated the carbon cycle in each model and chose three such effects to produce three basic models. We then used each model to discern if the observed CO2 rise at Mauna Loa could be induced in the model as being (a) a natural effect and (b) an anthropogenic effect, and this produced a total of six models. There were no “wild cards” (whatever you mean by that) in any of the models.
Of course, each model was SISO (i.e. single input, single output), but so what? We used three different mechanisms and the single input was the effect of natural variation (i.e. the slight temperature rise from 1900 to 1958) or anthropogenic (i.e. CO2 emission from human activities) to assess the effect of that input on the single output (i.e. the CO2 rise in the atmosphere).
All six of our models each matched the empirical data of the atmospheric CO2 concentration for each year to within the stated measurement accuracy of the Mauna Loa data. Thus, each of our models is better than the Bern model used by the IPCC because the IPCC uses unjustifiable 5-year smoothing to get its model to fit the empirical data.
But the fact that the six models all perfectly matched the data demonstrated that the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration measured at Mauna Loa can be completely attributed as being natural and can also be completely attributed as being anthropogenic in three different ways in each case.
Thus, we failed in our attempt to demonstrate either a natural or an anthropogenic cause of the rise in atmospheric CO2 concentration measured at Mauna Loa.
Richard
The Black sea is an anoxic body of water below 200m…. It is over 2000 meters deep at its deepest. Seems to be plenty of life in the Oxygenated surface waters and shelf areas….. I think these guys get a bit carried away with themselves.
richardscourtney says:
October 29, 2013 at 1:03 pm
temp:
re your obnoxious bloviation at October 29, 2013 at 12:39 pm.
How many more times do you need to be told? Your offensive and off topic trolling is not wanted.
CLEAR OFF!!
Richard
Lol stop your trolling or defend your position and I will.
davidmhoffer says:
October 29, 2013 at 1:10 pm
“temp;
richardscourtney has posted several rather detailed discussions of the science which you have ignored and instead blustered on about socialism. Do you want to discuss the science? Or not?”
Is not socialism a debatable science? While I agree in the sense that socialism is pure fantasy that doesn’t change the fact that troll boy believes it to be science. Add in that he posted as many trolls as he did “on-topic” posts. He is the one that wants to keep trolling. Since global warming is a socialist ideology thats only goal is to push socialism… a debate on socialism is well on topic btw.
temp says:
“Is not socialism a debatable science?”
It is a ‘social science’, and thus not a true science.
Readers of this site know the difference between a hard science, and studies of human nature based on economics.
temp;
Your inexperience with matters political is on full display. Any issue can and will be used by those who grasp for money and power, be they “right” or “left”. You need to get more familiar with history. I am old enough to recall the times when the ugly assertions you’ve made against socialists were the near verbatim mantra of those who were fighting capitalism. The accusations were no more true against them than they are against socialists. Socialism run amok is a bad thing, and capitalism run amok is a bad thing.
While I am no socialist, I come from a long line of socialists and a family steeped in the socialist tradition. My grandfather was a founding member of the CCF, the party that brought socialized medicine to Canada. In fact, his membership number was “3”. So I have a lot of socialists in my family and have been around socialists all my life. The accusations you level against them are not only not true, they are extremely offensive.
temp;
I missed out a point, which I shall add now.
If you don’t like the manner in which global warming has been used to tax and control your life by those in power, then fight it. You will find no more valuable an ally in this than richardscourtney.
temp:
There is no law, no moral principle and no ethical rule which requires me to discuss anything with an anonymous, egregious and obnoxious troll who hides behind anonymity while being abusive of me on a blog.
My political views are not relevant to the subject of this thread, but – in attempt to stop your trolling – I have twice linked to debate of them in this thread.
Your temper tantrums will not make me engage with you. I would need at least a modicum of respect for you to enable me to do that, but your behaviour in this thread has obtained my total contempt of you.
So, CLEAR OFF!!
Richard