From the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA – DAVIS
What the ancient CO2 record may mean for future climate change
Deep-time reconstruction shows tropical forests can deeply impact climate change
The repeated restructuring of tropical forests at the time played a major role in driving climate cycles between cooler and warmer periods, according to a study led by the University of California, Davis and published today in the journal Nature Geoscience.
Using fossilized leaves and soil-formed minerals, the international team of researchers reconstructed the ancient atmospheric carbon dioxide record from 330 to 260 million years ago, when ice last covered Earth’s polar regions and large rainforests expanded throughout the tropics, leaving as their signature the world’s coal resources.
The team’s deep-time reconstruction reveals previously unknown fluctuations of atmospheric carbon dioxide at levels projected for the 21st century and highlights the potential impact the loss of tropical forests can have on climate.
Climate Change Feeding Off Itself
“We show that climate change not only impacts plants but that plants’ responses to climate can in turn impact climate change itself, making for amplified and in many cases unpredictable outcomes,” said lead author Isabel Montañez, a Chancellor’s Leadership Professor with UC Davis Department of Earth and Planetary Science. “Most of our estimates for future carbon dioxide levels and climate do not fully take into consideration the various feedbacks involving forests, so current projections likely underestimate the magnitude of carbon dioxide flux to the atmosphere.”
Similarly to how oceans have served as the primary carbon sink in the recent past, tropical forests 300 million years ago stored massive amounts of carbon dioxide during these ancient glacial periods. The study indicates that repeated shifts in tropical forests in response to climate change were enough to account for the 100 to 300 parts per million changes in carbon dioxide estimated during the climate cycles of the period.
While plant biologists have been studying how different trees and crops respond to increasing carbon dioxide levels, this study is one of the first to show that when plants change the way they function as CO2 rises or falls, it can have major impact, even to the point of extinction.
“We see great resilience in vegetation to climatic changes, millions of years of stable composition and structure despite glacial-interglacial cycles,” said co-author William DiMichele, a paleobiologist with the Smithsonian Institution. “But we’ve come to understand that there are thresholds that, when crossed, can be accompanied by rapid and irreversible biological change.”
Co-leading author Jenny McElwain, professor of paleobiology at University College in Dublin, Ireland, said the study indicates that shifts in atmospheric carbon dioxide impacted plant groups differently.
“The forest giants of the period were hit particularly hard because they were the most inefficient of all the plants around at the time, likely losing water like open hose pipes” McElwain said. “Their forest competitors, like tree ferns, were able to outcompete them as the climate dried.”
Background: Unprecedented Rise of CO2
Over the past million years, atmospheric carbon dioxide has been generally low and fluctuated predictably within a window of 200 to 300 ppm. This, the researchers explain, has sustained the current icehouse – a time marked by continental ice at the polar regions – under which humans have evolved. This trend has been abruptly interrupted by the pronounced rise of carbon dioxide over the past 100 years to the current level of 401 ppm — one not seen on Earth for at least the past 3.5 million years.
The current unprecedented rate of rising atmospheric CO2 raises concerns about melting ice sheets, rising sea level, major climate change, and biodiversity loss – all of which were evident more than 300 million years, the only other time in Earth’s history when high CO2 accompanied ice at the polar regions.
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Thinking back to the age of the dinosaurs… they needed lots of greenery and must have breathed out lots of CO2 but what happened to the methane?
They were polite dinosaurs, just like the bison are polite mammals, because they didn’t expel any methane. Only domestic cows and other animals do that.
Some alarmists actually posit that giant sauropods might have produced enough methane to contribute measurably to global warming during the Jurassic and Cretaceous Periods of the Mesozoic Era.
But what about the fire hazard that their emissions presented?
For a somewhat different perspective on the role of CO2 in the ice age over the last million years from that mentioned at the end of the Cal Davis release, you might find this recent post from Dr. Judith Curry’s site of interest on that subject and glacial cycles in general:
https://judithcurry.com/2016/10/24/nature-unbound-i-the-glacial-cycle/#respond
Perhaps these fluctuations just represent the uncertainty in the reconstruction.
And here we’ve been told that Pangea had all the continents together 250 million years ago and the polar regions were mostly ice free due to there only being one ocean. CO2 is a powerful gas it seems.
The story says:
One of the things that determine the climate is the configuration of the continents. These researchers are talking about the time of Pangaea the supercontinent.
After the breakup of Pangaea the climate completely changed. You really can’t say much about the modern climate based on what happened during the time of Pangaea.
Exactly my line of thinking when I read this post.
You’re right that the configuration of the continents affected icecaps. There may have been no POLAR icecaps with high CO2 levels, but there were certainly mountain glaciers during the early, high level CO2 Jurassic..
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/283449822_Did_glaciation_occur_during_the_Toarcian_Early_Jurassic_in_the_East_Stara_Planina_Mts_East_Bulgaria
“The matrix supported conglomerates are non-sorted and are interpreted as connected with the activity of local glaciers, which probably occupied the summits of the relatively high uplifted Zlatarski Exotix Range, formed at 37� N { to cc. 200km to south from the present day exposures”
Given that the Jurassic was when Pangaea was breaking up … I really think some scientists should have a broader education.
Alan,
Yup. It was cold enough during intervals of the Jurassic and Early Cretaceous Periods for feathered dinosaurs to evolve insulation. The iciest episode occurred at the period boundary. Earth was in a Cold House then, but the arrangement of continents didn’t permit a full-blown ice age to happen, with vast continental ice sheets. There were montane glaciers, however, as you note.
The Ordovician-Silurian glaciation began with atmospheric CO2 around 4500 ppm.
We really are doomed. Gavin Schmidt has just confirmed what Chicken Little has been telling us for years, The Sky Really Is Falling In:
http://www.nationalobserver.com/2016/10/24/news/sky-literally-falling-because-climate-change-says-top-nasa-scientist
As the world reaches a globally significant carbon emissions milestone, the sky is literally falling as as result of climate change, says a top scientist at NASA.
This year was the hottest year on record according to the World Meteorological Organization (WMO) and saw globally averaged concentrations of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere not seen in roughly three million years.
“Carbon dioxide cools the stratosphere and when the stratosphere cools, it actually shrinks the size of the atmosphere,” Gavin Schmidt, director of NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told National Observer.
“So if you’re about 80 kilometres up, you actually are seeing the sky falling. It’s going down by a number of kilometres.”
‘Not seen in three million years’ – I guess they haven’t look up the numerous glaciation periods that took place several thousand years ago, with CO2 levels higher than present. Gavin’s a loon and always has been.
First point about this study, they obtained their CO2 estimates from Pedogenic Carbonates (or old fossilized soils). This methodology has been shown to be completely inaccurate as the values depend greatly on just the time of year that they were laid down or the amount of rainfall that was occurring.
In fact, this method has published estimates of ZERO ppm CO2 on four different timelines (including one at 294 Mya right in the middle of this study which was even used in IPCC TAR and AR4). Zero ppm would mean ALL the plants and animals died. But they obviously didn’t. The methodology, in fact, produces random results and this has been pointed out to the Paleo community before in published papers but they like to keep using it of course because one can blame all kinds of climate on CO2 when you are using random variables..
Back to the Carboniferous Ice Ages from 350 Mya to 290 Mya, here is the reliable temperature and CO2 estimates over the period. CO2 was very low but vegetation was very prolific during this time.
Why did this Ice Age occur? Because Gondwana (now attached to Pangea) was drifting across the South Pole. The first ice age from this issue started at 460 Mya – the Ordovician Ice Age and then it continued into the Carboniferous period. 3 km high glaciers, the same as today on Antarctica as the land slowly moved across the South Pole.
http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/ctl/images/figure05_10.jpg
But something happens when large glaciers stay on top of land for long periods of time. They sometimes depress the land so much, that it falls below sea level, the ocean floods in and the glaciers are gone. (Glaciers build up on land, not on ocean).
We see this today in Hudson Bay, the Glacial flow channels in the Arctic Archipelago, the Kara Sea, the Laptev Sea and the East Siberian Sea. Before the recent ice ages, these areas were all above sea level before successive glaciations long ago pushed them below sea level. It might take up to 100,000 years of non-glaciation before they rebound back above sea level.
The same thing happened to Gondwana in the Ordovician Ice Age and the Carboniferous Ice ages. Sea Level rapidly rose and fell as the glaciers came and went. Although there was continental shelf land over the South Pole during much of this timeline, it was not always above sea level.
In fact, this helped the Coal form from the Carboniferous as the swamp forests at the equator in North America and Europe were repeatedly buried under ocean sediments, then regrew and then were buried once again as the sea level changed rapidly as the glaciers came and went.
Pedogenic carbonate derived CO2 estimates (>2,000 ppmv) are the only basis for the “CO2 did it” theory for the PETM too. Fossil stomata indicate that CO2 levels were 300-450 ppmv,
Bill
Thanks for your as always illuminating explanation from real geology.
It’s really true – establishment alarmist scientists deliberately use flawed data if it is more suitable for being cooked into a CO2 alarmist message. Advancing knowledge comes a poor second to advancing the cause. It is this that is truly alarming and pitiful.
But – it is better to light a candle than to curse the darkness.
Few are as good at doing this as you.
Bill, I suppose the Y axe in the Carboniferous Ice Age – Sea Level graph above should be meters +/- present sea level instead of Temp C Anomaly? I can not imagine minus 120 C.
Yes, it is in metres. Forgot to update the Y axis label.
WTF???
“The last time Earth experienced both ice sheets and carbon dioxide levels within the range predicted for this century was” during the Pennsylvanian Epoch (Upper Carboniferous Period, ~325-300 MYA)…
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/GeoCO2.png
Prior to the Oligocene Epoch, the Pennsylvanian Epoch was the coldest, most CO2 deprived period of the Phanerozoic Eon.
http://i90.photobucket.com/albums/k247/dhm1353/Phan_CO2.png
Note that the rise in temperatures during the Permian Period (~270 MYA) preceded the rise in CO2 (~255 MYA).
I haven’t read the paper yet… But the press release is fracking moronic.
Phanerozoic scale: no meaningful correlation between temperature and CO2
Cenozoic scale: no meaningful correlation between temperature and CO2 (unless you care to explain a 5myr
lag between PE maximum CO2 and temperature and several other unconformities)
Neogene scale: CO2 follows temperature with lags similar to the ice cores during a long period of comparative stability
Human scale: CO2 follows human production, but temperature still controls the variability around the trend.
The inflection point between no correlation and temperature dependence appears to be in the Oligocene.
Not to be picky but what is the Oligoncene and the spelling of anomaly is wrong in the last graph. WUWT?
Thank you for pointing out my typo in the graphic. I can now point out that you are not immune either. I actually spelled Oligocene correctly. It is the period abbreviated “Olig.” in the first graphic.
They looked for and “found” a causal relationship between CO2 and climate. To do so they needed to studiously ignore most of paleoclimatic history, and most especially the Modern climate involving the past 2 million years with alternating glacial periods of some 100k years and interglacials (which we are now in) of perhaps 10-20k years. These folks have the audacity to call what they produce “science” and who they are as “scientists”. They are nothing but charlatans and liars of the highest order.
At one time we had high CO2 without human intervention? Must be cyclical.
One could almost say it was unprecedented.
How shall we understand the last sentence in this article: “… the only other time in Earth’s history when high CO2 accompanied ice at the polar regions”?
Does that mean that there has been a historic period before with high CO2 and lots of ice at the poles at the same time?!
If so, what does that say about the AGW/CO2 hypothesis?
It says that 400 ppmv CO2 is low, not high.
I thought CO2 levels were supposed to have been pretty high during the Mesozoic Era.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012825299000483
“The general clustering of evidence at high palaeolatitudes suggests that the extent of polar ice during the Mesozoic is likely to have been approximately one third the size of the present day. Based on such evidence a number of episodes of cold or sub-freezing polar climates during the Bajocian–Bathonian, Tithonian/Volgian, Valanginian and Aptian are recognised. Evidence exists possibly also for a cold episode during the early Jurassic”
Yup. But an even bigger problem for alarmists is the fact that CO2 was two or three times higher even than during the Mesozoic when the Ordovician glaciation occurred, and eleven times higher than now.
Yesterday morning the BBC interviewed a climate scientist from the Free University. This person was ranting on about how we are rapidly approaching “dangerous” levels of CO2. She proposed a strategy whereby CO2 will be sucked out of the atmosphere…at which point I switched off the radio.
Given their way these fruitcakes could actually destroy life on Earth, their goal appears to be concentrations of atmospheric CO2 well below 200ppm. It baffles me that they can be so ignorant of the many facets that create weather and climate yet still freely disseminate their bogus ideas as FACTS! It is obvious that none of them understand the role CO2 plays in maintaining life on Earth.
“Free University”. Like, the name says it, man!
G. Carlin (AFAYK)
You get what you pay for .
Pay peanuts, get monkeys.
The climate’s been shot. Round up the usual suspects.
The last time A happened, B did as well. Therefore, A caused B. ClimateLogic.
Sorry but you’re going to have to get in line for your chance to play with the hands of the doomsday clock.
Gee, I wonder where the miles thick carbonate beds came from (?).
The article is a frank admission that CO2 was higher in the past than now. What is the downside of that? Nothing. The past was fine, apparently.
The general relationship between CO2 and temperature is so poor I view this paper to be drawing attention, unintentionally, to the fact that the concentration has been far higher for most of the planet’s history. The only thing unprecedented is the low level in the recent past. We will be in much better shape as a planet if the concentration can get up to 1000 ppm. I frankly think that is possible as the storage of CO2 in limestone and shells is removing it permanently.
Oh well. Try to survive the next cold spell.
Do you think the fact that the continents were in a little different location had anything to do with it?
http://www.bevpease.force9.co.uk/kd.map.350My_files/image001.jpg
Picky, picky.
Mass Extinction Event
… may be related to cooling climate from CO2 depletion caused by the first forests.
Pretty much describes the past 1 million years. CO2 depletion is driving the Ice Ages, and as species have gone extinct due to the cold, humans have expanded to take advantage of the newly available biological niches.
Because we are able to use technology to take advantage of many different environments, extinction events may well be a bonus to human beings, by reducing competition from other species.
We seem incapable of differentiating between geological and historical timescales.
Climate change protagonists are worried about what happens in the next 20 – 200 years, but are incapable of persuasively collecting and modelling data for the last 2000 years.
This analysis seeks to draw conclusions about what happened 260-330m years ago. Its obvious limitations in terms of precision and timing make it of almost no use whatsoever.
It may or may not be good science, but of no use or relevance to the current debate!
Planet Earth is a robust system, has survived huge paleo-historic climatic changes, and is more-or-less unscatthed. To try to exclude the evidence of this robustness is, sir/madam, derisory. Your final assertion is absurd.
I repeat my reply to analitik above….
“This is pure, unadulterated scare-mongering and b-s!
Where – in paleo-history — were these thresholds? When were they crossed? Why if “accompanied by rapid and irreversible biological change”, is Planet Earth still alive, and not burnt to a crisp thro’ accumulations of atmospheric CO2 (*far* higher in the past) as the Doomsayers claim we are on the brink of?
Is addition to the Pangea issue, this study also fails to take into account the lack of bacteria/fungi capable of breaking down lignin. Any feedbacks in existence then would be completely different now because, the carbon in trees is no longer going to be locked up in lignin and buried.
When I read my coffe grounds this morning I found irrefutable facts that this hypothesis is is right, wrong or nothing at all. I’ll see whether tea leaves give a clearer image.
Oceans didn’t act as a CO2 “sink” in the Carboniferous eh? Amazing.
And then this:
They must understand (if they learned any geology) that the Carboniferous forests were in coastal swamps, and were impacted by rising/falling land levels and/or sea levels. Present day forests OTOH are mostly on “dry” land. Drawing parallels between such disparate environments is risky, to say the least.
And finally this:
The message is, of course, ice ages are good. What they should have said is that interglacials are good. Glacial periods are really tough and when the next one comes, watch out (I’ll be long gone by then)
It’s always the same with these warmists; there is no mention of the Sun, solar cycles, orbital cycles, ecliptics, ocean/continent configuration, ocean current patterns, etc. etc. ad nauseam. No: CO2 is the only thing that controls climate.
Meanwhile there is uncertainty in the shells….
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2016/10/161024170634.htm
Smart Rock:
I appreciate yr response.
As a generality, there alwasy exists in life a large, disparate pool of self-actualizing, pig-troughing, sinecure-seeking, un(der)employed researchers, entrepreneurs/opportunists, politicians & power-hungry, ever trying to ‘make’ themselves at the taxpayers’ expense. Any new fad is a prospect — how can we manoeuvre this to our own advantage? Lo! AGW!! The opportunity for troughing at the taxpayers’ expense is irresistible! Marry these people coherently with the World-control freaks, co-opt the media into sensationalizing it, and they have hi-jacked AGW as *the* issue for their monopolist-seeking ends — a Heaven-sent Opportunity for people of this ilk.
In answer to yr last para. Smart Rock, we shd ask ourselves this Q.
Out of the basket of variables you give, “They” reviewed the list (boggle-eyed for the whiff of personal profit):
Sun? Buggah-all we can do with that!
Solar cycles (ditto)
Orbital cycles (ditto)
Ecliptics (ditto)
Continental drift (ditto)
Ocean current patters (ditto)
CO2 …. aaaaah! Fossil fuel-burning! Here we can get our toe in the door!
And so the band-wagon started and morphed quickly into a profitable-looking gravy-train for those on-the-make and those on-the take, and those at-the-trough of public funding. Complicit are the politicians, ever with an eye to an advantageous wind, and the myriad opportunities for self-advancement by colluding with lobbyists, and facilitating government largesse.
And very well have they colluded! There now exists an un-holy monopoly structure interwoven between U.N. power-brokers & bureaucrats, heads of state, their sycophantic minions, entrepreneur-promoters/lobbyists of relevant product (wind-turbines, solar-panels, etc.), diplomatic-circuit courtesans, conference junketeers, and — ah yes! — the backroom boys & girls who keep churning-out reports that their masters want to see. (In such an incestuous group, funding requests will be prefaced in terms of ‘proving’ what the Pay-Master(s) want to see/hear.)
All this monopolist group lacks is a name … I propose Global Warming Junket … but it is a pervasive, insidious & pernicious organism that has taken unto itself a life of its own . It will only destruct from within or from irrelevance, and it behoves us Skeptics & Deniers to hasten one such outcome.
Global Warming Junket is just that: designed for the Club-Members (monopolists all) at the Taxpayers’ expense.
Anything dispensed to us taxpaying proles is pure propaganda, designed to keep us brainwashed continuously and ‘true to The Cause’ and coughing-up the $ to fund The Big Scam.