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Methane Producing Dinosaurs May Have Changed Climate
Hugh Pickens writes "The Telegraph reports that huge plant-eating dinosaurs called sauropods may have produced enough greenhouse gas by breaking wind to alter the Earth's climate. Scientists believe that, just as in cows, methane-producing bacteria aided the digestion of sauropods by fermenting their plant food. 'A simple mathematical model suggests that the microbes living in sauropod dinosaurs may have produced enough methane to have an important effect on the Mesozoic climate,' says study leader Dr Dave Wilkinson. 'Indeed, our calculations suggest that these dinosaurs could have produced more methane than all modern sources — both natural and man-made — put together.' The key factor is the total mass of the animals which included some of the largest animals to walk the Earth, such as Diplodocus, which measured 150 feet and weighed up to 45 tons. Medium-sized sauropods weighed about 20 tons and lived in herds of up to a few tens of individuals per square kilometer so global methane emissions from the animals would have amounted to around 472 million tons per year, the scientists calculated. Sauropods alone may have been responsible for an atmospheric methane concentration of one to two parts per million (ppm), say the scientists and studies have suggested that the Earth was up to 10C (18F) warmer in the Mesozoic Era. ''The Mesozoic trend to sauropod gigantism led to the evolution of immense microbial vats unequaled in modern land animals. Methane was probably important in Mesozoic greenhouse warming. Our simple proof-of-concept model suggests greenhouse warming by sauropod megaherbivores could have been significant in sustaining warm climates.'"
The world today is very different than the world millions of years ago. There were a lot more trees back then, which provided more shade for the ground and more oxygen in the air. It's not Methane alone that is affecting the planet, it's ALL of the ABOVE!
-- By all means let's be open-minded, but not so open-minded that our brains drop out.
http://www.cell.com/current-biology/abstract/S0960-9822(12)00329-6 in which the authors thank Lynn Margulis and say that she would 'savoured" fart jokes. "We thank the late Lynn Margulis for infecting us with her microbial enthusiasm — she would have savoured the notion of sauropods as walking methanogen vats.
"Asleep at the switch? I wasn't asleep, I was drunk!" -- Homer
Actually it kind of makes sense. We see in our modern developed culture that Childhood Obesity is on the rise. The Fast Food Industry has plainly stated that foods slow to digest are not their responsibility. We are already witnessing "in herds of up to a few tens of individuals per square kilometer" wondering in local Walmart Supper Stores. Possibly a grant could be established that would allow the study of ventallation systems exhaust particles of Nordstroms and Walmarts?
She's way out of line there. Climate deniers are stupid, not crazy, and you can't cure stupid.
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To be honest I hope Obama DOES win re-election. I want the next four years to destroy anything left of his legacy.
This is the problem with Americans today. Instead of desiring a bright, hopeful, prosperous future, we instead want one where the people we dislike bring us into ruin just so we can say "I told you so."
The problem with climate change is the rate. The dinosaurs, were here for 160 MILLION years. The amount of time it took for the type of climate change the research is suggesting (due to excrement) is hard to agree with. There could have been a lot of other naturally contributing factors in that timescale.
The amount of climate change brought about in the past 100 years, however, is largely due to anthropogenic emissions. People consuming resources, driving, industry, cows (yes meat production and transportation as well as dairy farm methane), depletion of natural carbon sinks, irresponsible land use and the list goes on.
So stop trying to push climate change off as a totally natural occurrence that we have nothing to worry about. The earth's climate has never remained the same for long, and yes it's had plenty of warm and cold spells in the past but never, ever have we been able to find that rate of change occurring over the course of a measly 100 years. This is the worrisome part. People need to accept that we have changed the course of climate on this planet at a rate never seen before and the earth will continue to warm unless we start changing the way we live. And soon.
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A model is only as good as its assumptions, and their assumptions about population density seem difficult to believe. Tens of sauropods per square kilometer? A quick Google search shows that population densities for African elephants are on the order of .1-4 individuals per square kilometer. Even assuming sauropods had a somewhat lower metabolism than an elephant, it's difficult to believe that you could take sauropods, which are several times the size of an elephant, and pack them in at ten times the population density; they'd just strip all the leaves off the trees and then starve to death. That's ignoring the fact that the plants may have been less productive, which would limit the amount of food available. The dominant trees in the Mesozoic are conifers, which grow more slowly than modern flowering plants, so there's just not as much forage being produced by the environment.
Another recent study suggests the dinosaurs died off because they couldn't stand the smell.