'Great Dying': Rapid Warming Caused Largest Extinction Event Ever, Report Says (theguardian.com)

An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: Rapid global warming caused the largest extinction event in the Earth's history, which wiped out the vast majority of marine and terrestrial animals on the planet, scientists have found. The mass extinction, known as the "great dying," occurred around 252m years ago and marked the end of the Permian geologic period. The study of sediments and fossilized creatures show the event was the single greatest calamity ever to befall life on Earth, eclipsing even the extinction of the dinosaurs 65m years ago. Up to 96% of all marine species perished while more than two-thirds of terrestrial species disappeared. The cataclysm was so severe it wiped out most of the planet's trees, insects, plants, lizards and even microbes.

The researchers used paleoceanographic records and built a model to analyze changes in animal metabolism, ocean and climate conditions. When they used the model to mimic conditions at the end of the Permian period, they found it matched the extinction records. According to the study, this suggests that marine animals essentially suffocated as warming waters lacked the oxygen required for survival. The great dying event, which occurred over an uncertain timeframe of possibly hundreds of years, saw Earth's temperatures increase by around 10C (18F). Oceans lost around 80% of their oxygen, with parts of the seafloor becoming completely oxygen-free. Scientists believe this warming was caused by a huge spike in greenhouse gas emissions, potentially caused by volcanic activity.

Comments

Re: See

[jd]

Carbon, amazingly, doesn't care where it comes from.

And yes there are other sources. In the case of the Great Dying, a giant asteroid slammed into Siberia turning it into a gigantic lava bed.

See any 13 million square kilometre lava beds recently? Or giant asteroid strikes?

No?

Then the lesson you learn is that rapid climate change is deadly because it is rapid. The fact that temperatures have been more extreme than during that time doesn't matter.

Stupid dinosaurs

[110010001000]

If the dinosaurs had all bought $60,000+ Tesla's this could have been avoided.

Re:The Lesson

[hey!]

Back in the 90s my wife worked for a large public water authority serving over a million people. She attended a board meeting in which the IT department presented a proposal to acquire this new thing called "anti-virus".

When one of the board members heardhow much this would cost, he balked. When challenged by other board members as to what they should do about computer viruses, this was his response: "We don't have to do anything. We've spent millions of dollars on these systems, and the integrity of those systems will protect them."

In other words, he didn't have any specific justification for his position, he was just certain they didn't need to do anything about the problem. He was certain because that's what his gut was telling him. And his gut was telling him that because he didn't like what he'd have to do if it were a problem.

This is, in fact, the way most people think. Only people trained in specific disciplines like science think differently, and with social media it's very easy to construct an information bubble in which science sounds outlandish, because everyone knows Adam and Eve rode around on dinosaurs.

I don't think it's people's guts telling them

[rsilvergun]

there's not problem. Folks know there's a problem, but the average person is living paycheck to paycheck (60-80% of them, depending on if you define "paycheck to paycheck" as "very little in the bank" or "not a dime in the bank").

I've said this before, but it's worth repeating: Climate change is years from now, rent's due at the end of the month. If you want folks to care about climate change you have to solve their short term economic problems. That means taxes. If you're making good money (figure $300k/yr+) your taxes are going up to fund public works projects. Also we're gonna have to pull back on all those wars and, well, let's not mince words, your stock portfolio profits handsomely from the Military Industrial Complex...

Still, unless we do something about working class Americans then they're gonna keep voting climate change deniers in office because anything we can do about Climate change is likely to cost them money, and they're barely making it.

Re: The Lesson

[hey!]

In the 1970s, greenhouse effect models correctly predicted that the aerosol cooling trend that dominated global climate between 1940 and 1980 would be reversed in the coming decades. And if you apply an impulse response filter (like moving average) to smooth out year-to-year weather effects, the predictions of those models as to global temperature anomalies hold up extremely well.

This is the strongest possible confirmation you can have for a scientific hypothesis, which is why the burden of proof is on people who make claims like the earth is not warming, or that anthropogenic CO2 emissions can't drive climate change. You can call the people who support AGW "chicken littles", but here's the thing: even if that were true, it wouldn't matter. The emotional basis of your beliefs has no relevance at all. It's what you claim and how you support it.

You can be a Young Earth creationist and a good scientist, as long as you don't make any unsupportable creationist claims in a scientific forum. In church you can say anything you damn well please.