From the POTSDAM INSTITUTE FOR CLIMATE IMPACT RESEARCH (PIK)
How the darkness and the cold killed the dinosaurs
66 million years ago, the sudden extinction of the dinosaurs started the ascent of the mammals, ultimately resulting in humankind’s reign on Earth. Climate scientists now reconstructed how tiny droplets of sulfuric acid formed high up in the air after the well-known impact of a large asteroid and blocking the sunlight for several years, had a profound influence on life on Earth. Plants died, and death spread through the food web. Previous theories focused on the shorter-lived dust ejected by the impact. The new computer simulations show that the droplets resulted in long-lasting cooling, a likely contributor to the death of land-living dinosaurs. An additional kill mechanism might have been a vigorous mixing of the oceans, caused by the surface cooling, severely disturbing marine ecosystems.
“The big chill following the impact of the asteroid that formed the
crater in Mexico is a turning point in Earth history,” says Julia Brugger from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), lead author of the study to be published today in the Geophysical Research Letters. “We can now contribute new insights for understanding the much debated ultimate cause for the demise of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous era.” To investigate the phenomenon, the scientists for the first time used a specific kind of computer simulation normally applied in different contexts, a climate model coupling atmosphere, ocean and sea ice. They build on research showing that sulfur- bearing gases that evaporated from the violent asteroid impact on our planet’s surface were the main factor for blocking the sunlight and cooling down Earth.In the tropics, annual mean temperature fell from 27 to 5 degrees Celsius
“It became cold, I mean, really cold,” says Brugger. Global annual mean surface air temperature dropped by at least 26 degrees Celsius. The dinosaurs were used to living in a lush climate. After the asteroid’s impact, the annual average temperature was below freezing point for about 3 years. Evidently, the ice caps expanded. Even in the tropics, annual mean temperatures went from 27 degrees to mere 5 degrees. “The long-term cooling caused by the sulfate aerosols was much more important for the mass extinction than the dust that stays in the atmosphere for only a relatively short time. It was also more important than local events like the extreme heat close to the impact, wildfires or tsunamis,” says co-author Georg Feulner who leads the research team at PIK. It took the climate about 30 years to recover, the scientists found.
In addition to this, ocean circulation became disturbed. Surface waters cooled down, thereby becoming denser and hence heavier. While these cooler water masses sank into the depths, warmer water from deeper ocean layers rose to the surface, carrying nutrients that likely led to massive blooms of algae, the scientists argue. It is conceivable that these algal blooms produced toxic substances, further affecting life at the coasts. Yet in any case, marine ecosystems were severely shaken up, and this likely contributed to the extinction of species in the oceans, like the ammonites.
“It illustrates how important the climate is for all lifeforms on our planet”
The dinosaurs, until then the masters of the Earth, made space for the rise of the mammals, and eventually humankind. The study of Earth’s past also shows that efforts to study future threats by asteroids have more than just academic interest. “It is fascinating to see how evolution is partly driven by an accident like an asteroid’s impact – mass extinctions show that life on Earth is vulnerable,” says Feulner. “It also illustrates how important the climate is for all lifeforms on our planet. Ironically today, the most immediate threat is not from natural cooling but from human-made global warming.”
###
Article: Brugger, J., Feulner, G., Petri, S. (2017): Baby, it’s cold outside: Climate model simulations of the effects of the asteroid impact at the end of the Cretaceous. Geophysical Research Letters [DOI:10.1002/2016GL072241]
Weblink to the article: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2016GL072241/abstract
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Everyone knows the Dinosaurs died in Noah’s flood!
Magnetic reversal killed the dinasaurs alone with an ice age. The asteroid that hit Arizona only a small part.
Dinosaurs are a hoax.. just like the climate change.. They never existed.. Do some real research on it just as forensic as looking into climate change
[???? Dinosaurs are real. I know. I have seen pictures and movies of dragons. .mod]
Groaner,
Missing sarc tag?
Dinosaurs are real. They’ve been around for about 235 million years. Before that there were archosaurs very similar to them.
Dinosauria is a superorder, containing two orders. Ornithischia, with such plant-eaters as Stegosaurus, Iguanodon, hadrosaurs, Ankylosaurus and Tricerotops, went extinct at the end of the Cretaceous. Saurischia, includes the extinct, giant, herbivorous sauropods in one suborder and the mostly meat-eating, bipedal theropods in another. Theropods still exist in the form of birds.
NOT.. Who teaches this crap in schools, colleges. The curriculum is headed by Zionists. The science is bogus.. The fossils are all planted then found ONLY by paleontologists who pay to have them create them, and make up how old they are.. Its a big business, just like Global warming nonsense. Follow the money.. Its alll about money and power.. and then more money and power.
Groaner,
Still missing a sarc tag.
I can assure you that not all paleontologists are Zionists, not that their opinions about Israel matter in the least. Paleontology isn’t the only science demonstrating extinct species.
The first dinosaur fossil was found by a priest in the Church of England.
Besides dinosaurs, millions of other extinct plants and animals have been found.
The earth is over 4.5 billion years old, and species go extinct all the time. Some leave behind fossils before doing so.
And yet not all the animals became extinct 65 million years ago ,and yet 10000 years ago mega fauna became extinct without the aid of an impact.
Salvatore,
Megafauna became extinct in Australia a good bit earlier – maybe – IIRC – 26,000 years as a median. Ish!
Coincidence is not causation.
But the Americas – Clovis, about 12-11 KYA; and Australia c. 26 KYA – appear to also be the emergence/import of a big game hunter technology.
And in NZ much more recently, no evidence of extinctions 11 KYA, but also Maori arrival, with modest hunting technologies and very, very naïve fauna; about [late?] thirteenth century AD. The moas perished pretty quickly, perhaps by 1400 AD; a very few possible (“claimed”) sightings from the Nineteenth century [IIRC] and that was that.
Climate, too, was changing, with affects on sea level, etc.
Possibly pathogens, too, were introduced.
Coincidence is not causation.
No substantial impact. Agreed. Even Barringer/Meteor Crater was about 50 KYA.
The Kamil crater, within the last ‘5,000 years’, involved an iron meteorite of 5-10 tonnes [estimates from the fabled Wikipedia].
And Tunguska was last century.
Auto
One more based on common sense
.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kELjoMqAowo&t=19s
I wonder why the Bible didn’t even mention dinosaurs? I asked this question to a pastor once and he got mad at me for it. I wonder why?
Cliff: You are a troublemaker. There were no dinosaurs left (except for the birds) when the bible was written.
You are correct texasjimbrock, the Bible was written AFTER Noah. There wasn’t enough room in the ark for the dinosaurs.
How am I a trouble maker? Because I ask questions? It’s painfully obvious the authors of the bible were completely unaware dinosaurs had ever existed. Liberty University has on their campus dinosaur fossils they claim are less than 5k years old. lol
Cliff,
My birdfeeder has dino-aves, living, less than 5,000 hours old, I suspect.
Certainly less than 5,000 days!
And we get parakeets.
Auto.
“It’s painfully obvious the authors of the bible were completely unaware dinosaurs had ever existed.”
Some authors of the Bible gave a pretty good description of the way creation unfolded. They wrote that in the beginning, the universe, was “without form and void” (a soup of protons, neutrons and electrons) and God said, “Let their be light”, and there was light (the point that the universe went from being totally opaque, to transparent, about 300,000 years after the Big Bang). A pretty good description of the initial stage of the universe, it sounds like to me.
Maybe authors of the Bible knew more than you think they did.
TA
January 14, 2017 at 8:32 pm
Actually the description of creation in Genesis 1 & 2 and everywhere else in the Bible bears no resemblance whatsoever to what has been observed of the origin of the universe, or even of everyday occurrences.
The first creation myth in Genesis starts with the breath of God moving over the waters, not with a hot, dense singularity. Whence came the waters?
In that story, there are night and day before there is a sun, which when finally made, is to serve as a marker, not as the source of daylight, while the moon is to mark the night. Nor in the Bible does the earth spin on its axis nor orbit the sun. It is immobile, with foundations and pillars. It’s also flat and covered by a solid dome, upon which God walks and operates the levers of the storehouses of snow, rain and other precipitation. The sun, by contrast does however move over the earth, before returning to the place of his rising (outside the vault of heaven, from which stars hang which are in danger of falling to earth).
Fossils were however known to prescientific Bible authors–the ‘giants in the earth’. Just as mammoth skulls inspired the Cyclops of Greek myth, so did megafauna fossils inspire the biblical giants.
Its a lie,, along with evolution… a hoax.. this whole system is so anti God, what is true is false, what is false is true.. bad for good.. Armageddon is coming soon, all the liars will not be around much longer.
You mean that the creationist liars who blaspheme God by calling Him cruel, deceptive and incompetent are going to be wiped out?
Seems to me that the earth and its inhabitants did better when it was hot.
******** “It also illustrates how important the climate is for all lifeforms on our planet. Ironically today, the most immediate threat is not from natural cooling but from human-made global warming.” *********
What cod-swallow…the paper purports to theorize via modeling (a tool that has served only the delusional warmists), that extreme cooling (ie 21C drop) killed off most living organisms at that time. One could only interpret this as COLD kills. But then a specious statement is made, under the guise of irony, that man-made warming is an immediate threat. A most ponderous interpretation. I submit the authors are trying to hedge further funding opportunities (ie the paper discusses that cold is a significant issue AND the throw-away warmists rhetoric sentence).
More PIK fairy tales. The Chixulub impact could have caused a shortived ‘impact winter’ from ejecta. It could not have caused a sulfate winter as Yucatan rock doesn’t contain any, nor do studied bolides. The Deccan traps may or may not be associated with the impact; they were not diametrically opposite at time of impact. But even if so, all previous studies had Deccan aerosol cooling of at most 2C. Reason is flood basalt eruptions do not have sufficient VEI for anything to reach the stratosphere where it can be long lived (<3 years); anything else washes out in less than a month.
Actually there is some Early Cretaceous anhydrite in Yucatan, but not that much. And while flood basalt eruptions on a large scale do have some impact on climate (e. g. Laki 1783), their main biotic effect is quite possibly mostly through direct toxicity, as also seen during the Laki eruption (which was actually a quite small one, as flood basalts go).
And a really large flood basalt eruption could very likely “punch through” into the stratosphere by simple thermal convection, like large tropical thunderstorms sometimes do.
There almost certainly was a dark, cold interval after the Chicxulub impact, but it almost as certainly didn’t last for years, more likely weeks or at most months.
There are several indications for this. Organisms living in lakes and rivers survived much better than any others, which suggests that the thermal inertia of these relatively small water bodies was sufficient to give partial protection.
Extinctions in oceans were probably due to loss of primary production (phytoplankton), which are microscopic and will be eliminated by even a few days darkness. It is interesting to note that every species of ammonites died out while the closely related nautiloids survived. Ammonites had small eggs which hatched almost immediately. Nautiloids have large eggs which float around for a couple of months before hatching. Apparently by the time they hatched the oceans had recovered enough for at least some of the larvae to survive.
Actually we don’t know nearly enough about the atmosphere and climate to make any detailed predictions about the effect of such a huge impact. As already noted the debris from the impact falling back would have heated the stratosphere very intensely, and nobody knows enough to predict what happens when you inject large quantities of rock vapour, sulfur etc into the stratosphere and heat it to very high temperature. Particularly since the effect would be geographically heterogenous. This applies both to the chemistry and to atmospheric circulation/climate. Whatever happened was probably quite nasty though.
There is also strong indications that the main eruptive phase of the Deccan Traps happened right after the Chicxulub impact, and it is quite possible that there is a causal link. It is well established that earthquakes can trigger volcanic eruptions, and this was the largest earthquake for at least half a billion years, by several orders of magnitude.
It has long puzzled me that the dinosaurs (including marine dinosuars such as plesiosaurs) became extinct whilst the fish,(including sharks), crocodiles and alligators, birds and mammals survived. The evidence of a meteor impact conciding with the extinction event is strong. But the apparent selection of species that died out seems skewed. Purely as a speculative hypothesis could a new pathogen, either evolving from ones alrerady present on earth or carried from outer space account for the death of dinosaurs and ammonites rather than a change to climate that would have killed off other genera?
Plesiosaurs were not dinosaurs. None of the marine reptiles were, unless you count sea birds.
As I wrote above, freshwater organisms (such as crocodilians) survived reasonably well. Ocean organisms were much more affected, including marine reptiles (there never was any marine dinosaurs). Deep-ocean taxa (which are only indirectly dependent on primary production) survived much better than shallow-water organisms.
And fishes, mammals and birds very largely did not survive. For example there is now a pretty good fossil record of Cretaceous birds, and almost none of them survived. All 10,000 species of birds today comes from a very few (perhaps as little as five or six) closely related species from a single (and up till then rather unimportant) branch of the bird phylogenetic tree.
“could a new pathogen, either evolving from ones alrerady present on earth or carried from outer space account for the death of dinosaurs and ammonites”
Extremely unlikely. Such a pathogen would have to affect some (but not all), species of practically every phylum, including plants, and work both on land, in fresh water and in the oceans and from the tropics to the poles.
It may be that runoff cleared the streams and lakes quickly, while dumping the detritus of massive, widespread fires into the shallow waters of the continental shelves. The decomposition of the organic matter would have depleted the oxygen, adding one more stress to the shallow ocean ecosystem. This would explain why the fresh water species survived while related marine organisms died.
While the initial event was clearly the impact, the rest of the chain of events would have been quite complex, and no doubt vary dependent on location. I’d expect a combination of pure random survival of the impact, followed by ability to survive the recovery period, followed by the ability to adapt and thrive in the new normal.
There is indeed some evidence for widespread dysoxic conditions in deep oceans just after the Chicxulub impact.
With the high temperatures released by the impact, rather than pathogens could some other toxic gas be produced. https://www.britannica.com/science/nitric-oxide
‘Nitric oxide is formed from nitrogen and oxygen by the action of electric sparks or high temperatures’
NO comes to mind as it may disorientate dinosaurs, well it does this to birds, no controlled testing possible.
When an animal is sedated by this gas it loses the ability to seek heat,shiver or be thirsty or hungry.
Death would follow in a matter of a day or two, well within the winter hypothesis for this asteroid strike.
Perhaps it, when dissolved in sea water, did the same to Ammonites, disorienting them, making them easy prey, because they were unable to swim.
Sorry, was thinking of ‘laughing gas’.
Perhaps that is formed too?
NO though is toxic to DNA, so could have precipitated cell death immediatly and long term breeding failure.
Nitric oxide and peroxynitrite can also induce DNA strand breaks (Salgo et al., 1995b), which can be prevented by superoxide dismutase or nitric oxide-trapping agents (Epe et al., 1996). DNA single-strand breakage has been reported in intact cells exposed to peroxynitrite, indicating that peroxynitrite has the ability to enter cells and to induce nuclear changes (Salgo et al., 1995a). Possible responses include initiation of DNA repair and/or cell death by necrosis or apoptosis. These findings elicit concern regarding reactive intermediates that may be formed in the extracellular milieu of the lungs of patients during the administration of inhaled nitric oxide.
“As I wrote above, freshwater organisms (such as crocodilians) survived reasonably well. ”
An excellent post. To add to it,I’d like to point out that years ago, paleontologist Laurie Bryant did her doctoral thesis on survival rates of lower tetrapods across the K-T extinction, using data from the Hell Creek and Tullock formations in Montana — one of the very few places on Earth that preserves a good land fossil record from just before and just after the extinction. Bryant found that she could identify members of 25 amphibian, reptile, and crocodilian families in the Hell Creek Formation… and that 24 of them also appeared in the Tullock and/or later Cenozoic rocks, meaning that they clearly survived the extinction. A drastic difference from the 100% extinction rate among dinosaurs, or the high extinction rates among mammals and birds. Two possible explanations for this are that the extinction agent was size-specific, killing all tetrapods above a certain body mass, or that it was metabolism-related, preferentially killing warm-blooded organisms. Neither of these is really consistent with the ‘asteroid winter’ scenario…. or with any other hypothesis I’ve ever heard.
As a geologist I’ve seen the popularity of the asteroid impact theory wax and wane over the years. Certainly in happened at the right time, and so did the Deccan eruptions, at least in part, but the biggest problem is puzzle pieces that just don’t fit. Here they feel they have explained the death of the dinosaurs, but they have ignored the survival of birds (just one example). Birds are now almost universally accepted as dinosaurs, not able to hide away in holes or somewhere, yet here they are. But some birds became extinct, as did some mammals, lizards, insects and plants. Others, that seemingly must have been their neighbors, survived. The patterns are very hard to explain. It suggests to me that the event was probably more complex than any of the theories that have attempted to explain it.
D
+ several.
It was a long time ago. We have some information – but do we have enough?
The impact [asteroid; comet; meteorite; Godzilla; giant sperm whale, per Pratchett; whatever] theory does tick some boxes.
Agreed we probably don’t have all the tesserae of the mosaic.
I think that those we have suggest that the Yucatan impact was significant.
Was it the only factor??
I don’t know, but I suggest not . . . . . . .
And I am human, so most certainly I can be wrong.
And much mileage in this for grants – I suggest.
Auto
Seed-eating toothless birds survived.
Not such a mystery, IMO.
Good explanations exist for why some groups survived and others didn’t.
I wonder what Noah had against the dinosaurs. Surely there was room on the ark for some of the smaller ones.
One thing I expected to see referenced with respect to a huge impact would be a corresponding impact from volcanism. I would think with that much force being exerted on the mantle, it would push magma/lava out of volcanoes like squeezing pimples across the globe. Just sayin,,,,,,,,,
Which conjures up an image of an adolescent earth with acne.
Dean,
what you wrote is objectively wrong. “Animals with food still in there mouth,” really?! And Soft tissue is not “regularly found in dinosaur fossils.” Then you break off into a non-sequiter on cellular complexity. Get a grip man. Your faith in magic is showing.
Actually, skin is found in some sites regularly, along with feathers so finely preserved they can see the molecules that determine the color of the feathers. Picture relatives of T-Rex in black, red, and white feathers.
This is a hypothesis: a computer program plus unsupported speculation.
The entire paper should have been about the results of a modeling exercise and a call for oxygen isotope and rare element work to determine if the model had validity.
So much for real science
Diug,
This is post-fact Climate “Science”
Do revisit your expectations, please.
Auto, sad that that is necessary.
Here is your homework.
Assuming you believe that and asteroid hit 66 million years ago — all you have after all is traces that can be explained by assuming an asteroid hit, you don’t actually have eyewitness data..
Assuming you believe this..
Calculate
1. The evolution of temperature
2. Changes to the atmosphere
3. Changes to the Ocean
4. Impacts on life forms.
Describe the tool or method you would use.
When you have submitted your work and demonstrate you understand, then your opinion of other folks solutions will be added to the reading list.
Whatever the Chicxulub impact did to life or not, it at least gave use blue pectolite, or Larimar. Reminds me of a blue sky with clouds.
I love the idea of a Marlboroughsaurus and I am solidly with DLong that we don’t have anything like a sufficiently good understanding of why some species went out and others didn’t- in fact we struggle with this on the Mega Fauna extinction, let alone the demise of the dinosaurs 65 mya.
I might mention, in case anyone is not familiar with it, the crocodiles in the Sahara desert who have survived since North Africa dried up about 10,000 years ago by burrowing down into long tunnels and going into a stasis until the annual wet season which gives them about eight weeks of shallow water ponds to do the business before hunkering down for another year.
Presumably the crocodilians survived because they were able to do something similar when the
KT impactor hit and there would have plenty of dead carcasses for a while to keep them going.
It gets more problematic with highly active species that depend on getting food every day, especially if there really was more than one impactor and the debris that rained back from atmosphere and space was even greater than just the Chicxulub strike alone. It is precisely because of all these complexities that we should reject one off solutions, despite the modern tendency to believe everything can be simplified to one cause, like CO2 being the invention of Satan apparently for example.
Whatever killed the dinosaurs didn’t kill all the birds all the turtles, all the lizards & crocodiles. Something killed them all but didn’t kill all the mammals or amphibians. Monotremes and marsupials also survived and so did all the fish, snails, worms, not to mention all the insects and spiders.
In other words whatever killed T Rex and all his close taxonomic relatives was very selective to get every single last one. There aren’t any monotypic dinosaurs like the coelacanth or gingko tree left for us to study. Nope, they are ALL gone. What sort of an event would single out a whole class of animals like that?
Darkness and cold? Hmm some of the frogs toads and salamanders survived, why not some the dinosaurs?
Well enough of the stage setting, disease could have done it. Biological agents can be selective. There are plenty of articles about the chytrid fungus that today threatens amphibians and super bugs might threaten humanity. Our friends in academia seem to only consider the physical environment such as climate change because that is in vogue. Evolution is a sacred cow that couldn’t possibly unleash a biological agent so deadly because only an evil human science could do that.
I posted before reading the comments – I see I’m not alone (-:
I like your idea of a biohazard that killed off the dinos. Never heard it before.
A biohazard that kills both animals and plants (yes there was fairly extensive plant extinctions as well), and is effective both on land, in fresh water and in oceans?
tty
Oh. Wow!
That is some Bio-hazard.
Early Polywater?
But how did it then go away??
Auto
A biohazard that kills both animals and plants (yes there was fairly extensive plant extinctions as well), and is effective both on land, in fresh water and in oceans?
Sort of a super bug that dinosaurs never developed a resistance to. The chytrid fungus
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chytridiomycosis
is rampaging through the amphibians. Will it kill them all. Will all the frogs toads and sallymanders join
T Rex and his cousins in a mass extinction?
Some, a very few, “dinosaurs” did survive – just not the big ones we all like. And that’s not including the birds, an argument we don’t need to restart here. I’m not not a fan of the disease or genetic exhaustion (whatever that is) ideas simply because a few individuals usually survive biological vectors and produce new immune populations – but we just don’t really know. Sharks did OK, but Icythiosaurs didn’t. More questions than answers…
Ichthyosaurs had already been extinct for 25 million years when the Chicxulub bolide struck.
There is no valid argument against the classification of birds as dinosaurs, unless you know of one undiscovered by paleontologists.
The science is becoming unsettling in just about every category. I say that with 95% confidence.
Oh and just a really interesting example – dragonflies survived! A really environmentally delicate species if ever there was one makes it across several extinction events, including the big one, and continues to flourish today all over the world (OK not counting Antarctica and the Arctic then) .
Insects are virtually immune to mass extinctions. Species go extinct, yes, but not higher level taxa. There are simply too many insects in too many places.Some always survive in some cranny somewhere.
The Permo/Triassic extinction is the big exception, it killed off eight or nine Insect Orders. Only three have gone extinct in the 250 000 000 yers since then, and none at all in the last 100 000 000 years.
By the way, dragonflies do occur in the Arctic. There is even a species that only lives in tundra habitat Somatochlora alpestris.
This is about as credible as the junk peddled by evolutionary psychologists.
Don’t you love how the author lays out this interesting story, and only at the last couple sentences does he mess it up with:
So, we envision this huge asteroid wiping out much life, and then we juxtapose this image with much life being wiped out by CO2.
Asteroid impact = planet frying because of CO2. That’s a sneaky and distorted implied analogy.