Guest eye roll by David Middleton
From Real Clear Science…
The Two Great Killers of ‘The Great Dying’
By Ross Pomeroy – RCP Staff
The Siberian Traps in northern Russia are picturesque. The expansive region is graced with serene slopes that jut into striking plateaus. Hiding behind this beauty, however, is a calamitous history, revealed by the basalt rock that underlies the region. Roughly 250 million-years-ago, the Siberian Traps exploded in a series of volcanic eruptions that continued off and on for two million years. When the upheaval finally concluded, 770,000 square miles of magma covered the land and an enormous amount of climate-altering gases had entered the atmosphere. As best scientists can tell, the global changes triggered by these gases resulted in the Permian–Triassic extinction event, “The Great Dying,” in which up to 96% of marine species and 70% of terrestrial vertebrate species disappeared. It was the worst mass extinction event in Earth’s history.
[…]
Simulating the global warming that occurred (as validated by geochemical data) during the Permian–Triassic extinction within a model of Earth’s climate, the researchers found that oxygen available in seawater to marine species would have fallen by 76 percent.
[…]
Could this calamitous scenario play out again given the current rate of ocean warming? Using publicly available IPCC data, the researchers estimated that by 2300, the oceans could warm to levels roughly ~35 to 50% of those required to account for most of the end-Permian extinctions. We may be on our way to a “Great Dying” sequel.
Source: Justin L. Penn, Curtis Deutsch, Jonathan L. Payne, Erik A. Sperling. “Temperature-dependent hypoxia explains biogeography and severity of end-Permian marine mass extinction.” Science. 7 Dec. 2018.
To paraphrase The Black Adder: “Ocean warming and oxygen deprivation stalk our oceans like… two giant stalking things.”
Ross Pomeroy is usually spot-on with his analyses of scientific studies. However, he tends to go off the rails when it comes to climate change. This was my comment on his article:
“Could this calamitous scenario play out again given the current rate of ocean warming? Using publicly available IPCC data, the researchers estimated that by 2300, the oceans could warm to levels roughly ~35 to 50% of those required to account for most of the end-Permian extinctions. We may be on our way to a “Great Dying” sequel.”
Only in an RCP8.5 fantasy land.
RCP8.5 yields a wide range of temperature increases by 2300. From 2 to 14 °C, with a mean value of 8 °C.
However, we know that RCP8.5 is 100% bull schist.
Temperature trends aren’t even on course to breaking out of the Quaternary noise level and 8 °C probably doesn’t even get us back to the Mid-Miocene Climatic Optimum.
And the Mid-Miocene Climatic Optimum was cooler than the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum and Early Eocene Climatic Optimum.
And the Early Eocene was a period of a explosive growth in biodiversity.
Could this calamitous scenario play out again given the current rate of ocean warming?
References
Christy, John. 2016. Testimony of John R. Christy. Washington, D.C.: U.S. House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, 23. https://docs.house.gov/meetings/SY/SY00/20160202/104399/HHRG-114-SY00-Wstate-ChristyJ-20160202.pdf.
Hoorn, C., Wesselingh, F.P., ter Steege, H.; Bermudez, M.A., Mora, A., Sevink, J., Sanmartin, I., Sanchez-Meseguer, A., Anderson, C.L., Figueiredo, J.P., et al. Amazonian through time: Andean uplift,climate change, landscape evolution and biodiversity. Science 2010, 330, 927–931
IPCC, 2013: Climate Change 2013: The Physical Science Basis. Contribution of Working Group I to the Fifth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change[Stocker, T.F., D. Qin, G.-K. Plattner, M. Tignor, S.K. Allen, J. Boschung, A. Nauels, Y. Xia, V. Bex and P.M. Midgley (eds.)]. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, United Kingdom and New York, NY, USA, 1535 pp.
Wuebbles, D.J., D.W. Fahey, K.A. Hibbard, D.J. Dokken, B.C. Stewart, and T.K. Maycock. 2017. Climate Science Special Report: Fourth National Climate Assessment, Volume I. Washington, D.C.: USGCRP, 470. doi: 10.7930/J0J964J6.
Zachos, J. C., Pagani, M., Sloan, L. C., Thomas, E. & Billups, K. Trends, rhythms, and aberrations in global climate 65 Ma to present. Science 292, 686–-693 (2001).
The Permian extinction that, did not occur at 252 mya, that is when it ended. It is the point where the number of new species evolving equals the number of species going extinct. Extinctions started exceeding evolving species around 15 million years before that. The ice age ended around 275 mya and coincided with a rapid decline in oxygen. Oxygen during the ice age had increased to some 30 to 35% of the atmosphere, when the ice age ended it dropped over 25 million years to a low of 12 % causing the oceans to become anoxic.
The Siberian traps have been dated at 254 mya (if I remember correctly) and therefore could not have been responsible for the extinctions. An increase in sulfur appeared somewhere in that time frame and could have been the final straw as bacteria convert sulfur compounds to H2S which is more toxic than cyanide.
The increase in CO2 does not coincide with the progression of the extinction. In fact much of the increase could have initially been from decomposition of the species going extinct and later on from the Siberian traps. When the rate of extinction was exceeded by the rate of evolution of new species CO2 had risen to 1600 ppm.
One could make a good case for the rise in CO2 stimulating plants to the point where they reversed the decline in O2 levels and saved life.
More recently 20,000 years ago CO2 dropped to 180 ppm, dust storms ravaged the planet, plants were on the verge of dying from lack of CO2. If the greens had their way and got CO2 back to 270ppm then when we return to the ice age levels will again drop 100 ppm below that to around 170ppm. Plants die around 160 ppm.
As Einstein said.”only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity and I am not sure about the former”
Your dates and explanation are widely refuted.
The Siberian traps are almost universally considered to have spanned the boundary of these two periods.
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/7/e1500470
I think I have to dispute the contention that hydrogen sulfide is more toxic than cyanide.
I am thinking you must be referring to hydrogen cyanide
Both are very toxic, for sure, but we have enzymes that can neutralize a small concentration of H2S.
Not so for hydrogen cyanide.
In any case, the dose makes the poison, and people are exposed to hydrogen sulfide all the time.
10 PPM is the amount of continuous exposure permitted for H2S, but for cyanide it is half that.
Both nicotine and vitamin D are even deadlier, so…
When I first read the summary of the research, I had a question. They talked about tropical marine life already being adapted to low oxygen levels and not needing to migrate. However, what about the mid-latitude marine life? Why didn’t it migrate north towards cooler water that could dissolve more oxygen? Surely Arctic waters were cooler than mid-latitude waters and weren’t as warm as tropical waters!
I’m dubious that the polar regions experienced the greatest loss as a result of high surface water temperatures. After all, half of the year there is no warming at all, and the other half the intensity of sunlight is low as a result of the cosine law. Considering that there was a concomitant loss of 70% of land life, something more than a reduction in dissolved O2 would seem to be in play. More likely that it was a combination of warming, decreased pH (especially from sulfuric acid), and toxic fumes. Trying to pin it entirely on warming sounds to me like a bid for more grant money.
Earth was in an extensive glaciation (ice age) over ~350-250 Gyr ago, and CO2 was quite low (similar to today) for an extended period. It has been suggested CO2 was low because plants developed ability to make large structural tissue which no organism could destroy for some time. Extensive coal was produce in this time.
Might the 250 Myr volcanic eruptions ended the ice age?
The ice age ended in the mid-Permian, not at its end.
Although there was a brief (~80,000 years-long) ice age at the end of the Permian, probably caused by SO2 from the initial Siberian Traps volcanism, which has been blamed for the mass extinction.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170306091927.htm
The warming phase only occurred some 500,000 years after the cold-caused wipeout.
http://notrickszone.com/2018/05/28/2-new-papers-permian-mass-extinction-coincided-with-global-cooling-falling-sea-levels-and-low-co2/
Didn’t post below, so will try here.
I note also that the graph shows Cretaceous O2 levels lower than now, further showing false the conjecture that giant pterosaurs could only fly due to a denser atmosphere, with more oxygen.
SO we don’t need SUVs to create mass extinctions, they can occur naturally; so can globale warming. What are the reasons given by the hand-wringing moralists that the current variations are not natural?
Proof of the pudding is in the eating, its obvious that the fact we are still here that things were not a bad as said by the article. Many species are evoling all o the time, so a lesser version dies out, and the better version carries on. Look at the Neandrails and us, they obviously interbred to some degree as we all have a bit of their DNA, but the earlier race simply ceased to be as it was not up to the conditions. Its called “Survival of the fittest ” as per Darwin.
MJE
This is research that identifies fakirs and exposes scam artists.
A) The IPCC has highly questionable biased data current to at best 2016. Whatever these characters used for their 2300 and beyond estimate, it is not data!
B) Somehow, according to these shysters, a few centuries of CO₂ emissions are equivalent to two million years of multi-chemical volcanic emissions.
C) Once again, warmist alarmists model doom and disaster fantasies and pretend it is science.
Pathetic.
Gawd, what have the Warmunists wrought this week?
“Could this calamitous scenario play out again given the current rate of ocean warming? Using publicly available IPCC data, the researchers estimated that by 2300, the oceans could warm to levels roughly ~35 to 50% of those required to account for most of the end-Permian extinctions. We may be on our way to a “Great Dying” sequel.”
What even is a percentage of a temperature?
This diatribe just shows how nonsensical the IPCC models are.
”To paraphrase The Black Adder: “Ocean warming and oxygen deprivation stalk our oceans like… two giant stalking things.”
They wouldn’t know a Permian Extinction if it painted itself purple, jumped onto a harpsichord and started singing” Permian Extinctions are here again”
Mosh in 3…2…1
“Could this calamitous scenario play out again … the oceans could warm to levels roughly ~35 to 50% of those required”
So in one word, “NO”. Worse than that, it’s models all the way down.
Ross Pomeroy suggests “We may be on our way to a “Great Dying” sequel.”
The ocean heat content is over 1000 times greater than the atmospheric heat content (5.6×10^24 ocean vs. 5 x10^21 Joules/Degree Kelvin for atmosphere) as presented on WUWT here:
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2011/04/06/energy-content-the-heat-is-on-atmosphere-vs-ocean/
In addition, 90 % of the total volume of ocean is found below the thermocline in the deep ocean where much of water is between 0-3 degrees Celsius. I would be interested in seeing the calculations showing how atmospheric CO2 will change the planet by 2300 in a similar way as the Siberian Traps changed it over a period of two million years.
Cold extermination: One of greatest mass extinctions was due to an ice age and not to Earth’s warming
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170306091927.htm
Two other papers reach the same conclusion, ie that cold not heat killed:
http://notrickszone.com/2018/05/28/2-new-papers-permian-mass-extinction-coincided-with-global-cooling-falling-sea-levels-and-low-co2/