Blueprint for today’s climate change?
UNIVERSITY OF HAMBURG
The end of the Permian was characterized by the greatest mass extinction event in Earth’s history. 252 million years ago, a series of volcanic eruptions in Siberia led to a massive release of greenhouse gases. In the course of the next several millennia, the climate ultimately warmed by ten degrees. As a consequence, on land, roughly 75 percent of all organisms went extinct; in the oceans, the number was roughly 90 percent.
By analyzing how the now-extinct marine organisms once lived, Dr. Foster and his team were able to directly link their extinction to the following climate changes: declining oxygen levels in the water, rising water temperatures, and most likely also ocean acidification.
These changes are similar to current trends. “Needless to say, our findings on the Permian can’t be applied to modern climate change one-to-one. The two climate systems are far too different,” says Foster, a geoscientist. “Yet they do show which traits were critical for an organism’s survival or extinction– under similar conditions. This can offer us valuable indicators for who or what will be at the greatest risk in the future.”
Specifically, the team analyzed more than 25,000 records on 1283 genera of fossil marine organisms like bivalves, snails, sponges, algae and crustaceans from the region of South China – all of which had mineral skeletons or shells. Their fossilized remains can be dated using a special method, offering insights into marine ecosystems dating back millions of years. The team also drew on an enormous database that offers additional information on various ecological aspects of how these organisms lived.
For each genus, twelve of these criteria were analyzed. Did certain traits make a given organism more likely to survive under the conditions prevalent at the end of the Permian – or not? With the aid of machine learning, a method from the field of Artificial Intelligence, all of these factors were analyzed jointly and simultaneously. In the process, the machine essentially made certain rational decisions on its own. Once this was done, the team compared the results: what organisms were there before, during and after the mass extinction?
Their findings reveal the four factors that were most essential to whether or not organisms survived the end of the Permian: where in the water they lived, the mineralization of their shells, species diversity within their genus, and their sensitivity to acidification.
“But with previous machine learning applications, we couldn’t say how the machine made its decisions.” Using a newly implemented method from games theory, Dr. Foster has now succeeded in unraveling this aspect: “Some animals lived in deeper water. Here, the machine shows that the worsening lack of oxygen posed a risk. In contrast, those animals that lived nearer the surface had to contend with the rising water temperatures. Plus, when you have only a limited habitat, you have nowhere to go when that specific habitat becomes uninhabitable.” As such, the results show which of the organisms’ traits were determined to be potentially fatal. The team was ultimately able to confirm that the mass extinction can be directly attributed to deoxygenation, rising water temperatures and acidification – which indicates that, in a future climate crisis, these could also be the three main causes of extinction in the long term.
Foster WJ, Ayzel G, Münchmeyer J, Rettelbach T, Kitzmann N, Isson TT, Mutti M, Aberhan M (2022): Machine learning identifies ecological selectivity patterns across the end-Permian mass extinction; Paleobiology;
DOI: 10.1017/pab.2022.1
JOURNAL
Paleobiology
DOI
METHOD OF RESEARCH
Data/statistical analysis
SUBJECT OF RESEARCH
Animals
ARTICLE TITLE
Machine learning identifies ecological selectivity patterns across the end-Permian mass extinction
ARTICLE PUBLICATION DATE
1-Mar-2022
COI STATEMENT
No conflict of interest
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I see no proof in anything they said that any one of those disastrous conditions existed at the time .How about we ditch the AI pontifications nd try to determine what the actual conditions were first?
Correlation alone does not establish causation!
However, the order and priority might have been the opposite of what is listed. That is, HCl and HF from the volcanic emissions react with water to create strong acids, as do sulfates from the common pyrite and marcasite in the baked/burned coal beds. Whereas, CO2 is a weak acid, and strongly buffered by the (bi)carbonate buffering chemistry. Thus, the strong acids may have actually resulted in acidification of the oceans. That alone may have been disastrous for the species near the surface. All of the above mentioned gases are toxic, and capable of killing air-breathers on land. The lowered pH would have driven CO2 out of the water. Between the CO2 from the intrusions, the oxidation of the coal beds, and outgassing from acidified ocean water, it may have increased the atmospheric temperatures. All of this would have killed the surface life. As bacteria decomposed the dead animals, it would have used up the oxygen and released even more CO2 and toxic H2S. Eventually, what oxygen was in the deeper water would have diffused out and lowered the O2 in the deeper water as well, killing the life forms there. CO2 was involved, but (in my judgement) probably not the driving force. It was probably the toxic gases from the volcanic emissions and the combustion of the coal, producing not only HCl, HF, H2SO4, Hg, and CO2, but with limited oxygen, carbon monoxide, and various volatile hydrocarbons similar to benzene and coal tars.
Seems to conflict with this peer-reviewed study:
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
I remember learning, based on current and historical records, that when volcanoes erupted they threw all sorts of gases into the atmosphere, not just GHGs, including tons of ash, dust and particles that ‘blanketed’ areas in the region of the eruption with dense clouds and affected climate, but temporarily — and as I recall, even to lowering, not increasing temperatures.
Which is factually true or the most consistently observed result of volcanic eruption in the real world?
Well this during a period Earth was in greenhouse global climate which quite different than our current Icehouse global climate.
Or ocean was already much warmer, and then had massive volcanic activity.
Starting with warm ocean, it already had lots of CO2, and massive volcanic activity warmed
the deep ocean, even more.
So, it seems it was the massive volcanic activity.
And one imagine 1/2 as much volcanic activity in our present cold world, would also cause mass extinctions [though not have much warming effect upon our very cold ocean].
Machine learning identifies grant award selectivity patterns across the end of western academia event.
It is another model.
That is, a synthetic programmer written collection of Confirmation bias where gross assumptions (two million years Siberian Trappes eruptions emitted “greenhouse gases”) begat all author favored results.
Ignoring two million years of sulfur emissions are far deadlier than CO₂. Nor should one forget that two million years of molten lava overspreading vast areas are going to heat the atmosphere…