From the University of Exeter and the “everything causes global warming and it’s bad, bad, according to our model and leaps of logic” department.
The evolution of Earth’s first animals more than 500 million years ago caused global warming, new research shows.
Some 520-540 million years ago, animal life evolved in the ocean and began breaking down organic material on the seafloor, leading to more carbon dioxide and less oxygen in the atmosphere.
In the 100 million years that followed, conditions for these earliest animals became much harsher, as ocean oxygen levels fell and carbon dioxide caused global warming.
The research, published in Nature Communications, is from the Universities of Exeter, Leeds and Antwerp, and the Vrije Universiteit Brussel.
“Like worms in a garden, tiny creatures on the seabed disturb, mix and recycle dead organic material – a process known as bioturbation,” said Professor Tim Lenton, from the University of Exeter.
“Because the effect of animals burrowing is so big, you would expect to see big changes in the environment when the whole ocean floor changes from an undisturbed state to a bioturbated state.”
“We did indeed see a decrease in oxygen levels in the ocean around 520 million years ago,” said Professor Filip Meysman, from the University of Antwerp.
“But evidence from the rock record showed sediment was only a little disturbed.”
Professor Simon Poulton, from the University of Leeds, said: “This meant that the animals living in the seafloor at that time were not very active, and did not move very deep into the seabed.
“At first sight, these two observations did not seem to add up.”
Lead author Dr Sebastiaan van de Velde, of the Vrije Universiteit Brussel, explained: “The critical factor was to realise that the biggest changes happen at the lowest levels of animal activity.
“This meant that the first bioturbators had a massive impact.”
The researchers said this realisation was the “missing piece of the puzzle”, and allowed them to construct a mathematical model of Earth around that time to look to the changes caused by these early life forms.
Dr Benjamin Mills, also from the University of Leeds, who led this part of the research, said: “When we ran our model, we were surprised by what we saw.
“The evolution of these small animals did indeed decrease the oxygen in the ocean and atmosphere, but also increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to such an extent that it caused a global warming event.
“We knew that warming occurred at this point in Earth history, but did not realise it could be driven by animals.”
This process made conditions worse for these animals, which possibly contributed to a number of mass extinction events during the first 100 million years of animal evolution.
“There is an interesting parallel between the earliest animals changing their world in a way that was bad for them, and what we human animals are doing to the planet now,” said Professor Lenton, director of Exeter’s new Global Systems Institute, which aims to develop transformative solutions to the challenges facing the world today.
“We are creating a hotter world with expanding ocean anoxia (oxygen deficiency) which is bad for us and a lot of other creatures we share the planet with.”
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The paper is entitled: “Early Palaeozoic ocean anoxia and global warming driven by the evolution of shallow burrowing.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-018-04973-4
Results from another model, boy these folk know how to spend tax payer money – but seriously do they get paid for producing such utter garbage? Most would not know what happened last year never mind half a billion years ago. Opinions dressed up as facts and money too, good to be on the gravy train.
So, as it appears to be natural, there is really nothing we can do about it, carry on.
Sounds like life is the problem then.
“…increased atmospheric carbon dioxide levels to such an extent that it caused a global warming event.”
More circular groupthink based on correlation only.
Lie-oturbation.
I do wish the people that call themselves scientists would do a little experimental work with equipment and materials they can buy and use safely for a few Dollars. This paper is more nonsense than not. I prove what I say:
Read “CO2 Is Innocent” at https://sciencefrauds.blogspot.com and clip-copy, print, take to a Chemistry or Physics teacher for authentication of chemistry, stoichiometry and physics, do the demo-experiment for a few Dollars and see for yourself that CO2 additions to the atmosphere on the order of those expected do not raise the temperature of air and we explain why. Anthropogenic global warming is panic pushing propaganda promoting political power.
This is better than Harry Potter
Those damned animals.
The sooner we make them all extinct the better.
Despite the hype, there is no real evidence that CO2 has any effect on climate and plenty of scientific rational to support the idea that the climate sensitivity of CO2 is zero. I doubt that primitive animal life some 500 million years caused global warming but rather global warming enabled the evolution of animal life. Animal life is an effect of global warming and not a cause.
Animals evolved long before the Cambrian.
“When we ran our model, we were surprised by what we saw.”
No you weren’t. It just produced what you put into it.
Need I say: ‘Garbage in, garbage out’? Maybe that’s too sarcastic.
A more frivolous expression would be: ‘A little knowledge is a dangerous thing’ QED
So now the “A” in CAGW stands for “Animal”?
Nearly Speechless!
Can Professor Lenton and his team tell us whether some 520-540 million years ago, CO2 in the atmosphere was,say, 20 ppm?
If so, and greenhouse gas growth for purposes of ECS is logarithmic, continual doubling since would mean, why, doubling from pre-1750 levels at 280ppm to later this century would be inconsequential.
Or am I missing something?
Best estimates place CO2 levels in the Early Cambrian atmosphere at around 7000 ppm.
I guess a headline such as
Claim: global warming caused World’s first animals
wold probably not make front page.
Global Warming is driven by the endless search for grants and faculty funding.
So now someone is modeling biological processes that happened 500 million years ago? Now that is asking for a lot of data manipulation and manufacturing.
“The evolution of Earth’s first animals more than 500 million years ago caused global warming, new research shows.”
So climate change is completely natural and can occur without any contributions from humans. So why fight it? It’s not nice to mess with Mother Nature…
So, how warm was it before the photosynthesizers started generating O2in the first place?
Photosynthesis started long before the Cambrian, in the Archean Eon. The oxygen it produced rusted iron out of the oceans for a long time before it could start building up in the seas and air, early in the Proterozoic Eon.
Temperature in the Archean and Proterozoic Eons swung wildly and widely, to include hot tub temperature oceans and Snowball Earth episodes.
Those darned prehistoric creatures, always creating problems for themselves…
These people are a waste of time and money.
They weren’t there at that time. They do not have measurements, they have nothing but calculations.
I could make an obscene comment about the contents of their digestive systems, but Anthony would give me a scold for it, so I will repeat my earlier message: STOP GIVING MONEY TO THESE PEOPLE!
The Ediacaran (last Precambrian period) fauna shows burrowing or tunneling before the Cambrian.
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0301926812002811
The difference is that the bottom, literally, of the Ediacaran food chain was cyanobacterial slime mats on the shallow seafloor, plus maybe some algae. Green plants hadn’t evolved yet.
A major cause of the so-called Cambrian Explosion was the mass extinction event resulting from Ediacaran animals’ having consumed the slime mats. Thus, the Cambrian was like the Triassic Explosion, a rapid adaptive radiation of new forms following a massive extinction event, ie the end Permian Great Dying in the case of the Triassic.
Other factors, such as increased predation, better sensory apparatus, such as eyes and more mineralization, perhaps in response to predation, also contributed to the apparent “explosion”. But in large part, the seeming explosion owes simply to the evolution of larger animals with hard body parts, enabling better fossil preservation.
I see where this article is going. For one, it reinforces the consensus that the warming (with the value-added adjustments that call for saving us with global socialism) we are seeing today is due to white males and capitalism.
That’s right. White males and capitalism are responsible for the Leuko-Anthropocene Mass Extinction.
Or I guess Leuco, to jibe with “-cene”.
‘They’ of course have it all backwards. Global warming caused animals to appear and evolve. It happened this way – The earth was a frozen ball of “stuff” until it drifted into the Sun’s orbit where it was warmed. Nothing was alive on/in the frozen ball. The earth warmed in the sun – hence the term global warming. Life appeared.
That is all we need to know!
I know this the same way many other ‘climate scientists’ know anything – it is simply obvious. QED
“From the University of Exeter and the “everything causes global warming and it’s bad, bad, according to our model and leaps of logic” department.
The evolution of Earth’s first animals more than 500 million years ago caused global warming, new research shows.
Some 520-540 million years ago, animal life evolved in the ocean and began breaking down organic material on the seafloor, leading to more carbon dioxide and less oxygen in the atmosphere.”
_____________________________________________________
– So animal life took up oxigen and released CO2.
-that enhanced plant production in the oceans and on land.
– which allowed flora to settle the land and fauna to follow.
— “evolution 500 million years ago caused global warming, new research shows”.
500 million years is a pretty long span for developing CAGW.
— so we, flora and fauna, have another 500 million years to adapt. To a changing climate.