[Researchers studying the largest-ever mass extinction in Earth’s
history claim to have found evidence that it was caused by runaway
global warming – and that the “apocalyptic” events of 250 million
years ago could happen again.
("Runaway global warming saw the planet's average temperature hit
about double what it is today about 250 million years ago" is,
however, a problematic statement.
Whether it is "double" or not would depend on where the baseleine
temperature is pegged, and which "scale" is used.)]
http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/earth-permian-mass-extinction-apocalypse-warning-climate-change-frozen-methane-a7648006.html
Environment
Earth's worst-ever mass extinction of life holds 'apocalyptic' warning
about climate change, say scientists
Runaway global warming saw the planet's average temperature hit about
double what it is today about 250 million years ago
Ian Johnston Environment Correspondent @montaukian 3 days ago
Some 250 million years ago, life on Earth nearly died out completely
***Researchers studying the largest-ever mass extinction in Earth’s
history claim to have found evidence that it was caused by runaway
global warming – and that the “apocalyptic” events of 250 million
years ago could happen again.*** [Emphasis added.]
About 90 per cent of all the living things on the planet were wiped
out in the Permian mass extinction – described in a 2005 book called
When Life Nearly Died – for reasons that have been long debated by
scientists.
Competing theories have been put forward, including meteor strikes,
huge volcanic eruptions and climate change.
READ MORE
Stopping climate change could boost the world economy by £15 trillion
'Darth Vader-style' threat to oust bosses who ignore climate change
Trump's Defence Secretary: Climate change already destabilising world
Climate change-denying EPA chief told: CO2 causes global warming
Now a team of researchers from Canada, Italy, Germany and the US say
they have discovered what happened and that their findings have “an
important lesson for humanity” in how we deal with current global
warming.
According to a paper published in the journal Palaeoworld, volcanic
eruptions pumped large amounts of carbon dioxide into the air, causing
average temperatures to rise by eight to 11°C.
This melted vast amounts of methane that had been trapped in the
permafrost and sea floor, causing temperatures to soar even further to
levels “lethal to most life on land and in the oceans”.
“Based on measurements of gases trapped in [the mineral] calcite, the
release of methane … is deemed the ultimate source and cause for the
dramatic life-changing global warming … observed at the end Permian.
“Global warming triggered by the massive release of carbon dioxide may
be catastrophic, but the release of methane from hydrate [its frozen
state] may be apocalyptic.
READ MORE
Oliver Stone predicts ‘the death of this planet' and our extinction
“The end Permian holds an important lesson for humanity regarding the
issue it faces today with greenhouse gas emissions, global warming,
and climate change.”
The paper said the average global temperature would have reached “well
above 29°C”. Today’s average is about 15°C.
“The emission of carbon dioxide from volcanic deposits may have
started the world onto the road of mass extinction, but it was the
release of methane from shelf sediments and permafrost hydrates that
was the ultimate cause for the catastrophic biotic event at the end
Permian,” the researchers added.
Professor Peter Wadhams, head of the Polar Ocean Physics Group at
Cambridge University, suggested a major methane pulse was possible.
However he said this would be “maybe not apocalyptic, but catastrophic”.
“If there were a large methane release, which is now possible because
of the instability of the methane hydrates underneath the Arctic
continental shelves, the off-shore waters, that could quite easily
give rise to a very large pulse,” Professor Wadhams said.
0:00
/
0:53
Bill Nye to Bernie Sanders: The effects of Trump's climate change
denial could be catastrophic
He was one of the authors of a paper in the journal Nature, which
suggested it was possible for a truly vast amount of frozen methane to
be released over just 10 years – a blink of an eye in geological
terms.
“We were concerned if there were a 50 gigatonne release, about eight
per cent of the methane in the hydrates, that would give an immediate
0.6°C of global warming, which is a very large pulse indeed,”
Professor Wadhams said.
“That modern threat is very real and very serious and has been
disregarded a lot by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change … I
feel strongly about it.”
However, Professor Wadhams criticised the title of the Palaeoworld
paper, which was “Methane hydrate: Killer cause of Earth’s greatest
mass extinction”.
“There’s a serious tendency these days to offer a breathless overkill
on the importance of a discovery. The title of the paper is over the
top,” he said.
“Methane may or may not be the cause of the extinctions described. The
evidence is equivocal. It doesn’t justify all the razzamatazz.”
10 photographs to show to anyone who doesn't believe in climate change
10
show all
And Professor Tim Palmer, an Oxford University physicist who has
worked on the IPCC reports, said it was unclear what future humanity
was facing.
“The relevance of such apocalyptic scenarios for the present
climate-change debate depends on cloud feedbacks being significantly
and substantially positive,” he told The Independent.
“Without them we will probably not warm enough for these releases of
methane to occur – another reason to do our utmost to try to
understand such cloud feedbacks.”
In a recent talk at the Royal Society in London, Professor Palmer
suggested “lukewarmists”, who downplay the dangers of climate change,
and “catastrophists”, who do the opposite, were both making the same
mistake.
The science, he said, suggested a range of possible outcomes from one
to the other and it was unclear what would happen.
However, Professor Palmer said computer models which accurately
simulated the Earth’s climate suggested it was more likely that
humanity was on course for global warming at levels considered to
produce particularly dangerous weather conditions.
--
Peace Is Doable
--
You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups
"Green Youth Movement" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email
to [email protected].
To post to this group, send an email to [email protected].
Visit this group at https://groups.google.com/group/greenyouth.
For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/d/optout.
