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;
As I said, I will try to find it.
>>>>>>>>>>>>>>
If you cannot find it, please send me an email at hoffer.davidm @ur momisugly gmail.com
I can then reply to it which will automatically trigger any defenses you have set up to class my address as trusted.
davidmhoffer:
Please check your email. I think you have made an important ‘find’ in the AR5: possibly the most important statement in that Report.
Richard
richardscourtney says:
October 31, 2013 at 3:22 am
You are most welcome. I am indeed a conservative, but rather more a Whig than a Tory, ie a classical liberal, in the original sense of that term.
Even during the political discussion you cite, I never had reason to question your scientific acumen & commitment to the highest principles of science, so corrupted by CACA advocates.
I’ve decided that however useful or not it may have been at the time, political discussions here are best limited. It is good however to know & share the information that “climate change” skepticism runs across the political spectrum.
davidmhoffer says:
October 30, 2013 at 8:01 pm
richardscourtney;
Yeah, I’m done with temp. Sometimes you learn something while pig wrestling, and sometimes the pig learns something, but when neither me or the pig is learning anything, best to just quit.
lol so I was correct in assuming that you believe just because corporatism has corporate in it you believe it was capitalist…. so easy and so sad at the same time the complete lack of basic education. You thus must flee for ignorance is truly bliss.
dbstealey says:
October 30, 2013 at 8:25 pm
“Please save your economics arguments for the proper thread. This conversation is supposed to be about the causes claimed for a biological extinction event.”
Richard contunies to troll his econ stance… if he would STFU up about it then I would let it drop. However he has no intent to do that. He continues the ad hom and fleeing. He is a coward plain and simple. He started this off topic side trip and I will be the one to finish it.
I am with you Richard, some trolls like to argue for the sake of arguing. How is the weather in Cornwall, colder again?
Bushbunny:
Thankyou for your message.
Temperatures in Cornwall are typical for this time of year. It is warm and wet. People retire to here because they remember the warm, know that wild palm trees grow here, and they forget the wet so it comes as a surprise to them. The threatened recent storm turned out to be a non-event here.
We don’t get volcanism so H2S is not a problem.
Richard
richardscourtney says:
October 31, 2013 at 6:39 am
(quoting SamC)”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 consistently been doing that ever since ppm measurements have been made at Mona Loa.”
I pointed out that your assertion is delusional: the atmospheric CO2 concentration is rising and it is NOT showing a “decrease on an average of 6 ppm every year, year in and year out”.
—————–
Richard, what do you want me to tell you, …. that you are “stuck on stupid” or what? Or would you prefer I refer to your commentary as “weazelworded” obfuscations?
Find my original statement and quote it …… instead of the above abbreviated statement concerning said that was made during the “middle” of the discussion and quoting it to CYA. Such conduct is the very reason I don’t like discussing science with females.
========================
richardscourtney says:
October 31, 2013 at 6:39 am
(quoting SamC)”December 2010 CO2 was 389.73 and October 2011 CO2 was 388.96 which amounted to 0.77 ppm less CO2 in the atmosphere.”
That is because December to October is not a year: a year has 12 months and not 10.
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Don’t be asinine, Richard. A Solar Year is not determined by the number and names of the months given to them by the Romans. The subject of our discussion would not be affected even if the Romans had designated there was 27 months in each year. And ps, I believe at one time there was ONLY 10 months specified in each year.
The divisions of a Solar Year is not determined by the number and names of the months but by the seasonal variations that are “marked” by the solstices and equinoxes.
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richardscourtney says:
October 31, 2013 at 6:39 am
The seasonal variation is an order of magnitude larger than the annual rise: I again link to the Mauna Loa data which includes the 10 months you cite
http://www.esrl.noaa.gov/gmd/ccgg/trends/
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Richard, just why in ell are you AGAIN citing a url link to a graph …… when I cited you the link to the ACTUAL DATA that the graph was plotted from?
Richard, maybe it will help you to better understand what you are looking at on the graph you cited …. iffen you look at an older copy of a similar graph on which I have included “notations” that define the “start of” and the average bi-yearly 6 ppm increases and decreases in CO2 …. as well as the average yearly 2 ppm increase in CO2.
Said graph, to wit: http://i1019.photobucket.com/albums/af315/SamC_40/keelingcurve.gif
And Richard, because you are picky, picky, picky, ….. picky, … I will forewarn you that my equinox designations are “reference only” and do not denote the exact “date” that they occur. But the FACT is, the “reversal” in/of the bi-yearly CO2 cycling is determined by the equinox, which precedes the actual “reversal. (I should have denoted the equinoxes on the small “inset” graph denoting the Annual Cycle).
Richard, it is of my opinion that you are refusing to face reality and the facts-of-the-matter simply because it would throw much of your published commentary in disarray if you admitted to the fact that ….. all the estimated, guesstimated (SISO) natural and anthropogenic CO2 emissions are based solely on the desire to explain the aforesaid average yearly 2 ppm increase in CO2. And it was that “back-calculating” of CO2 emissions that threw them in a “tizzy” recently when the CO2 ppm was increasing and their average temperature calculations were holding steady if not decreasing. Sure nuff, “Der ocean wasa sucking up all der heat that was supposed to be in der atmosphere”. A vunderful CYA dat was.
Richard, the ocean water has been steadily and consistently warming ever since the end of the LIA ……. and that is the only possible explanation for explaining the steady and consistent average yearly 2 ppm increase in CO2 for the past fifty five (55) consecutive years.
Residual, accumulations of CO2 in the atmosphere is not the cause of any “warming” but is the result of it. The “warming” of the ocean water is due to an increase in Solar irradiance …. and/or … an increase in the thermal energy escaping from the earth’s core.
And ps, ….. it is utterly silly for anyone to question: “Why don’t the natural sequestration processes sequester all the CO2 emissions of each year when their dynamics indicate they can?” …… when said person knows for a FACT that the temperature of the ocean waters are slowly increasing.
Cheers
Samuel C Cogar:
re your nonsensical diatribe at November 1, 2013 at 8:02 am.
1.
I have not been “asinine”.
2.
I did NOT quote you out of context: anybody can see that, and you did not make that untrue assertion in your first response to that quotation which I made IN FULL.
3.
A year IS 12 months and not 10 whatever you may think.
4.
Atmospheric CO2 concentration IS increasing year on year.
5.
Your assertions to the contrary (of my points 1 to 4) are idiocy.
If you post any more of your delusional nonsense then I shall ignore it.
Richard
Richard, the Gulf Stream keeps you temperate. Actually the ancient Romans actually used a 10 month year too until Julius Caesar came along. Trees cut down in the Amazon actually store Carbon in the soil, but that’s as much as I know. Any Cameron may put a disclaimer at the end of the film as I mentioned before. Same as the booklet that the ALP produced, they disclaimed the information and could not be sued for misinformation? LOL
bushbunny:
Thanks. I enjoyed that.
Yes, we do have a strange climate here at the end of the peninsula of Cornwall. Of particular interest is the mizzle. This is like mist with droplets so large that they can be seen but so small they don’t fall as rain. Mizzle goes wherever the air moves: an umbrella is useless and everything gets wet. LOL.
So we have an unusual sub-tropical climate with palms and tree ferns near the sheltered South coast and ‘blasted heaths’ from the winter Atlantic winds along the North coast. But surfers love the North coast.
I hope all is well in the Antipodes. It is early there but very late here so I am retiring to bed.
Richard
richardscourtney says:
November 1, 2013 at 11:40 am
Your assertions to the contrary (of my points 1 to 4) are idiocy.
If you post any more of your delusional nonsense then I shall ignore it.
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“And, spite of pride, in erring reason’s spite,
One truth is clear, whatever is, is right.”
Alexander Pope