Global Warming May Have Killed the Dinosaurs

The Fun Guy sent in a link to the American Society for Microbiology site, your leading news source for everything between nano and macro. The site is featuring a story about new research into the KT barrier extinction: the period in history where the dinosaurs went extinct, along with a number of other families of species. For a number of years scientists have theorized that an impact on the Yucatan peninsula was responsible for the species crash, but microbiological examination of marine organisms of the time indicate life persisted for another 300,000 years after the 'Chicxulub impact'. The researchers at Princeton who made this discovery theorize that global warming caused by a volcanic eruption in India is a more likely culprit for the world-wide devastation. The article generalizes that there is no 'smoking gun' for this event, and further research is required.

Comments

Re:Global warming ... just not that way.

[radtea]

It is also consistent with the fossil record, which shows huge amounts of charcoal cinders near the K-T boundary wherever you look, and a drastic change in the types of pollen present.

The article claims based on microbiological analysis from drill cores in Texas that the impact event, the tsunami event often associated with the impact, and the KT boundary, are all quite distinct in time, and all are distinct from the changes in microfosils that they think are indicitave of the dinosaurs dying. The article ends with a ridiculous statement that implies birds evolved after the KT event rather than before. Birds are not dinosaurs. Birds survived the KT event. Dinosours did not.

Curiously, they do not discuss how an impact of the type they claim to identify was not associated with a tsunami. Nor is there mention of how the irridium got into the KT boundary layer without an impact.

Whenever you see anyone filling in an area of uncertainty with a trendy, crisis-du-jour explanation, you should be very sceptical. The odds that a major socio-economic/political concern today just happens to be related to a mass extinction in the distant past are extremely low. The odds of scientists (and reporters) letting current concerns bleed into their hypotheses is on the other hand extremely high.

Volcanos and warming

[mdsolar]

Volcanos cause short term cooling until the ash falls out. Many volcanos erupting together cause longer term warming owing to the higher CO2 concentration.

You seem to want the climate to be entirely free from constraints of cause and effect, it can go wherever it wants for no reason at all. This is, I think, what you mean by instability. Climate feedbacks do occur but this is not the same thing as the butterfly effect which makes weather difficult to predict. Climate follows forcing and both the short term aerosols that you cite and the long term GHG balance have definite effects on climate.
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Because this false equating of weather behavior and climate behavior has been a major part of a well funded attempt to decieve the public http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/your-opinion-c ould-be-paid-for-by.html you may want to closely scutinize what has influenced your opinion here.

Skeptical about global warming? Who cares, you can still save money by switching to solar: http://mdsolar.blogspot.com/2007/01/slashdot-users -selling-solar.html

well, you're going to stay cross

[misanthrope101]

Because they're going to keep saying it, and you'll have to keep repeating yourself. Global warming skepticism is not caused by an inordinate concern for intellectual integrity and rigor. Similarly, Evolution "skeptics" will still tell you that evolution is impossible because of the 2nd law of thermodynamics, even though this has been refuted countless thousands of times. The mentality is the same. They trust all the fruits of science but think they can safely discard the mental model that created those fruits.

Well, that's the polite way of phrasing it. Basically they're just arrogant. They don't understand global warming (or evolution) and they really think that their own seat-of-the-pants assessment is more insightful than that of scientists who make their living analyzing the data. The virulent strain of populism that defines American culture encourages this. Evangelical Christianity encourages this. The media plays into it. The media exists to sell toothpaste and beer, and you don't sell as much toothpaste and beer if your message to viewers is "you don't understand things as well as you think you do, because you lack the education." It's a sad, self-perpetuating situation, but you (and all likeminded people) are stuck in a never-ending cycle of refuting the same claims, again and again and again and...

Re:well, you're going to stay cross

[hasbeard]

As a Christian who is able to think for myself, I'd like to make a response to your comments.

First, I agree somewhat with you. I too am uncomfortable with some of the politicization of the Church in America. The Church is at it's best when it is under pressure and persecution, not when it is wielding political power. I really don't care much for state religions myself.

However, I don't believe that Christians (even fundamentalists) has a monopoly on denying the truth. It is basic human nature to deny what we don't won't to see. The Bible actually describes and depicts this willful tendency of ours toward self-blinding.

I don't discount what scientists say, but then again I also treat it with some skepticism because I know that scientists are subject to the same problems that the rest of us are. Their judgment can be affected by self-interest just as much as you and me.

Also, I beg to differ on another point. Positive opinions on the topics you have mentioned are, with a doubt, held by many Christians. But, wouldn't you agree they are also held by many non-Christians also? Are "fundamentalist Christians" the only people who deny evolution? Are fundamentalist Christians the only people who are skeptical regarding global warming? Are fundamentalist Christians the only people who believe in free market capitalism?

I would ask you, why do non-Christians hold some of these same views you seem to be opposing? Are they somehow under the control of the same "force" as the "fundamentalist Christians"? How do you explain this?

Also, if you believe that "fundamentalist Christians" are somehow being controlled for the benefit of commercial interests, I think there is something else to take into account. You will probably find these same "fundamentalists" also hold some opinions antithetical to those of business. For example, many large businesses provide benefits for "same-sex partners." I don't think the fundamentalists like that. In this case, it seems they are thinking for themselves.

You also seem to be assuming that no one who honestly examines the facts on global warming, evolution, capitalism, etc., can come to an conclusion opposite to your own. Might I suggest that people of integrity can find themselves on opposites sides of an issue for reasons other than a desire not to face the truth?

Please remember that you are also bringing your own set of presuppositions to the discussion, and that there are factors influencing your thinking of which you not aware.

Re:Irony Alert

[The_Quinn]

Actually, since global warming occurs between every ice-age, regardless of mankind, you can actually THANK global warming for the existence of most of the life on the planet.

Just because you like a theory doesn't make it so

[Morgaine]

In accepting consensus opinion, you are ignoring one small little problem. The scientific method.

• 1) The extremely widely accepted global warming theory relies entirely on the results computed by the world's many Global Climate Models. These GCMs embody our scientific understanding of climate. There is absolutely no way for the combined and interacting effects of thousands of elements of known physics to be determined analytically --- it can only be done by simulation.

• 2) Not a single one of our current crop of GCMs can model the 100,000-year cycle of glaciations even remotely closely. The changes in solar irradiation resulting from orbital variations do not account for the 12 or so degs C variation between glaciated and interglacial peaks directly, and the currently simulated oceanic and atmospheric feedbacks do not account for it indirectly.

• 3) Climatologists acknowlege extremely widely in peer-reviewed papers that oceanic and atmospheric circulations are currently modelled only very simplistically, and that that cloud formation dynamics in particular are work in progress and that our current knowledge in this area cannot reliably predict even the sign of atmospheric feedback under major climate perturbations.

• 4) Oceanic biota contribute 10 times as much CO2 exchange to/from the atmosphere as the entirety of human activity, yet the collosal changes (90%) in the oceanic biosphere through direct human activity over the last century are not part of the climate modelling in any current GCM.

Put those 4 things together and the "science" of climate change has a problem. The problem is simple: scientifically, we cannot use the scientific method to predict change because our best models are not yet scientifically predictive. That's an absolute problem, and it can't be fudged by wishful thinking.

We know many facts --- most of the measurements are not in doubt. The trouble is, we can't add those facts together because the underlying model isn't working even to first order. You HAVE to be able to model major effects like the glaciation cycle before you can be confident that your model is valid for smaller effects like a 1 or 2 degrees C of additional contributory greenhouse heating.

The fact that the vast majority of climatologists believe that we are witnessing unprecedented global warming and that man's outpouring of CO2 is the key factor in it really has no bearing on the above. Science is not about beliefs. And it's not about witnessing diverse effects in the world around us and mentally putting 2 and 2 together. That's not science.

The only thing that's really certain is that we're witnessing an unprecedented rise in CO2 levels, and that the extra CO2 is undoubtedly a contributing factor for any climate change. And that's it. That's all we know. The rest is supposition, and the results from our GCM simulations cannot be accepted as gospel because they are quite severely limited, and do not match history, and we know it.

I'm not actually a skeptic on global warming at all (personally), but I absolutely refuse to attribute to science a prediction that the scientific method cannot currently deliver. It's a matter of scientific integrity.

Re:Irony Alert

[cheater512]

Personally I think its a bit of both.

We certainly contributed but it was going to happen anyway.