In the past it has been widely reported that high and abruptly changing CO2 concentrations during the Permian led to climate conditions that were “too hot for complex life to survive” on the planet. Today, scientists have determined that the opposite may be true: the Permian mass extinction event occurred during a period of global cooling, expansive ice sheet growth, relatively low CO2 levels, and a marine-habitat-destroying sea level drop of 100 meters.
Image Source: Kani et al., 2018
A year ago, the press release for a paper published in Scientific Reports argued that during the Permian mass extinction event, “the majority of marine species” were killed off by an “extreme cold” period that coincided with widespread glaciation and a dramatic drop in global sea levels.
“Analysis of the newly dated layers showed a significant reduction of seawater levels during the [Permian] extinction event. The only explanation for such a dramatic decrease in water levels is a sudden increase in ice. The ice age lasted just 80,000 years, but the extreme cold was enough to kill off the majority of marine species.”
Within the last few months, at least two more papers have been published that also affirm that the Permian mass extinction event that annihilated up to 90% of marine species and 70% of land-dwelling species coincided with extreme global cooling, ice sheet expansion over land, and dramatically-falling sea levels — 100 meters lower than they were in previously warmer climates.
The lowering of sea levels alone may have been enough to destroy a substantial percentage of marine habitats, and the expansion of ice sheets may have austerely limited the habitat ranges for land-dwelling fauna.
CO2 Concentrations And Mass Extinctions: A Questionable Link
Further analysis reveals that, contrary to commonly popularized claims, neither the Ordovician mass extinction event nor the Permian mass extinction event had a clear causal link to atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Indeed, it has long been documented that CO2 concentrations may have fluctuated between about 280 ppm and 2800 ppm during the Permian, with the low CO2 values coinciding with cool periods and the high values coinciding with warm periods (Saunders and Reichow, 2009).
While both extinction events occurred during global cooling periods accompanied by significantly lowered sea levels, the CO2 concentrations were relatively high (“over 2000 ppm”) during the Ordovician but relatively low (~300 ppm) during the Permian extinction event. The latter CO2 values would appear to undermine the contention that CO2-driven ocean “acidification” and too-high CO2 concentration levels were causally connected to the extinction of marine species during the Permian. And the relatively high CO2 values during the Ordovician are not compatible with the accompanying global cooling, glaciation, and plummeting sea levels of that period.
In sum, a growing body of evidence suggests that commonly-held assumptions about a direct causal link between CO2 concentration flux and mass extinction events may not be as clear as previously thought.
Isozaki and Servais, 2018 (full paper)
The Hirnantian (Late Ordovician) and end-Guadalupian
(Middle Permian) mass-extinction events compared
“Besides the similarity in extinction patterns with the preferential elimination of particular clades, we can recognize a major resemblance but of non-biotic nature between the [Ordovician] Hirnantian and [Permian] Capitanian [mass extinction] events, that is the significant cooling coupled with global sea-level drop.”
“A sea-level drop of nearly 100 m can be achieved solely by transferring vast seawater onto land in the form of ice. It is noteworthy that sea level was much higher in the Late Ordovician (ca. 60 m above the present-day level) than in the Middle Permian (ca. 80 m below the present-day level), even after the sea-level drop in the same magnitude.”
“The lines of evidence for cooling and relevant sealevel drop during the Hirnantian [Ordovician] are listed as follows: (1) sequence stratigraphy (Haq & Schutter 2008; Fig. 2); (2) regional occurrence of glacial sediments, including tillite/dropstone, mostly in Gondwana (e.g. Brenchley et al. 1994; Ghienne 2003); and (3) isotope signature in seawater (Trotter et al. 2008). On the basis of these, there was a solid consensus among researchers for the link between the global cooling and the first Hirnantian extinction; however, recent studies indicate that the cooling may have started not necessarily at the beginning of the Hirnantian but much earlier, probably already in the Middle Ordovician (Vandenbroucke et al. 2010; Finnegan et al. 2011; Nardin et al. 2011; Rasmussen et al. 2016). Nevertheless, sea level dropped nearly 100 m in the Hirnantian (e.g. Haq & Schutter 2008). Traditionally, the existence of a continental block (Gondwana) over the South Pole was required for the development of ice sheets.”
“The evidence for the late Capitanian global sealevel drop (for up to 100 m) is robust. … The sharp erosion of reef limestone in low-latitude mid-ocean implies a large eustatic sea-level drop, in other words, the appearance of a global cooling. … The biotic responses in the Hirnantian and Capitanian appear compliant with all these lines of evidence for cooling, in particular, the latitudinal contraction of faunal distributions towards tropics together with the preferential elimination of preexisting tropical fauna. Regardless of the second Hirnantian episode, the first decline in biodiversity in both cases occurred during global cooling. In general, a relative drop in seawater temperature, particularly in shallow seas, is critical for the metabolism of almost all contemporary marine organisms. The updated lines of evidence therefore confirmed the classic notion of a putative link between the global cooling and extinction (e.g. Stanley 1988) for both cases [Ordovician and Permian mass extinction events].”
“[T]he atmospheric CO2 decreased significantly from over 2000 ppm in the Late Ordovician down to ca. 300 ppm during the Middle Permian, almost close to the present level (Royer et al. 2014).”
Kani et al., 2018
Middle Permian (Capitanian) seawater 87 Sr/ 86 Sr minimum
coincided with disappearance of tropical biota and reef
collapse in NE Japan and Primorye (Far East Russia)
“The end-Middle Permian extinction was in fact a prolonged but gradual decrease in diversity from the Wordian to the end of the Capitanian (Clapham et al., 2009). The main phase of the extinction appears to have occurred almost simultaneously during the Capitanian minimum of Sr isotope records. The present study on Sr isotopes eventually confirms that the carbonate deposition declined and consequently ceased during the interval called the “Capitanian minimum” with extremely low 87Sr/86Sr ratios below 0.7070, at least in the northern part of Greater South China.”
“These studies confirmed that unusually the low 87Sr/86Sr ratio in seawater (as low as 0.7068) persisted throughout the Capitanian Stage of the Guadalupian Series (the last one-third of the Guadalupian). This extremely low Sr isotope value naturally reflected a minimum flux from continental crust with respect to that from mid-oceanic ridges. For the cause of this unique phenomenon, a conventional explanation might prefer a high sea level under global warming, which can suppress the global total weathering/erosion as a result of concealing vast continental coastal zones. Nonetheless, the sea level during the Capitanian contradictorily recorded the lowest stand of the Phanerozoic (Haq and Schutter, 2008), suggesting a global cooling instead. Ice coverage and/or the predominance of arid climates under cooling during the Permian likely accelerated the decrease in the seawater Sr ratio.”
“In general, the termination of shallow marine carbonates may occur with a decrease in the seawater temperature. Two possible causes can be inferred for the late Capitanian temperature decrease, i.e., 1) the appearance of global cooling, and 2) the migration of depositional sites to higher latitudes with cooler climates.”
“The Capitanian global cooling was proposed first on the basis of the unique carbon isotope record in low-latitude paleo-atoll carbonates (12°S) (Isozaki et al., 2007), a signature that was reproduced later in other parts of the world, e.g., in Croatia and in South China (Isozaki et al., 2011; Chen and Benton, 2012). In addition, in a global summary of sequence stratigraphy (Haq and Schutter, 2008), the findings of coeval glacial deposits in eastern Australia and in Mongolia (Fielding et al., 2008; Fujimoto et al., 2012), the selective extinction of tropical fauna (Isozaki and Aljinovic, 2009), the migration of mid-latitude fauna to low latitudes (Shen and Shi, 2002), and the Milankovitch tuning (Fang et al., 2017), all support the onset of cooling in the Capitanian.”
“[T]he Capitanian under a cooling trend […] [coincided with the] lowest sea level of the Phanerozoic and […] the preferential elimination of tropical fauna. … [T]he appearance of extensive ice coverage over continental blocks might have occurred, and the weathering/erosion of continental crust could have been suppressed to drive a lower riverine flux with high 87Sr/86Sr ratios. Alternatively, an arid weathering regime might have developed extensively under the cool climate, particularly on the vast supercontinent Pangea, which also contributed to suppressing the riverine fluxes (Korte et al., 2006).”
Or … it’s just another theory of what could have happened. But it sounds so good, right? Bias confirmed! No CO2 caused catastrophe, no ocean acidification ending marine life. Hurray!
We already KNOW that atmospheric CO2 has no warming effect, and no effect on ocean alkalinity. You have shown us that, with your total lack of any empirical proof.
So yes.. for once you are correct , seb.
OK. So it’s just another theory (‘hypothesis’ would be better) of what might have happened. So? Has anyone said it isn’t? Are you implying that when an alternative theory to the one you prefer, on about the same level of evidence, is proposed then we ought not to publish it because you don’t like it?
Be careful how you answer that question. Assuming you have an answer.
The title of this blogpost is pretty assertive, don’t you think?
I am not sure about that when the competing theories all describe warming instead of cooling.
Since you guys claim to be skeptical, you should at least display some skepticism towards anything like this that would completely negate what scientists thought has happened before. But I suspect you are desperate for anything that could be interpreted in a way that supports your views, so no skepticism towards something like this.
There are 4 newly-published papers referenced here that all say the same thing: sea levels plummeted to the lowest levels of the Paleozoic during the same period of time that most of the marine life — especially in shallower habitats — went extinct. What other explanation besides global cooling and glaciation leads to a dramatic lowering of sea levels, SebastianH?
By the way, the mechanism you have relied upon for the catastrophic warming during the Permian is instead a cooling mechanism: extensive volcanism. Just like it is a cooling mechanism in modern times.
—
Arefifard, 2018
“Isozaki, Kawahata & Ota (2007), Isozaki, Aljinovic & Kawahata (2011) and Kofukuda, Isozaki & Igo (2014) have speculated that global cooling was a causal factor in the late Capitanian regression. … [T]he temporal coincidence of […] volcanism and Capitanian extinction is viable. This volcanism was deleterious to life, as the extinction event was remarkable among warm shallow water fauna such as fusulinids, foraminifers, corals and calcareous algae, which suggests the cooling resulted from volcanism.”
—
The hundreds of years of Little Ice Age cooling was also attributed to relatively high levels of volcanic activity, which reduced surface solar radiation absorption:
—
https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2510
“Our results show that repeated clusters of volcanic eruptions can induce a net negative radiative forcing that results in a centennial and global scale cooling trend via a decline in mixed-layer oceanic heat content.”
—
So why is it that you nonetheless are a believer that high levels of volcanism during the Permian are what caused extinction-eliciting-warming instead of cooling? Can you explain this blatant inconsistency?
ZERO evidence seb continues with the ZERO-EVIDENCE meme. Just the mindless thought-bubble cis-troll games.
ZERO-EVIDENCE is all he has left to rant with.
SebastianH 28. May 2018 at 5:47 PM
As these papers go against your perception of ‘consensus science’, you appear to dismiss them for that alone. For skeptics however they appear to be good science and offering a credible explanation of the events back then. This skeptic does not think these papers offer ‘the whole truth’ because that, in this context, is unknowable. They do offer some good science and logical reasoned explanations for these historic events. What is criticism of them?
You offer no credible criticism of these paper, just a very biased dismissal of them. You offer no thoughtful scientific critique of them, I doubt that you have indeed really read them. Your sole criticism is that people should not take them seriously but give no reason why, and thus it is you who largely appears to be the one operating with ‘conformation bias’. Indeed you sound exactly like the critics of the day who attacked Albert Einstein but offered no rational for why he may be wrong, they just recited the faulty science dogma of the day. Then like now, you appear to be just a sorry individual with nothing more than dogma and sanctimonious cant to offer, when reason, logic and science is required. You offer none of these, you criticism is empty, your criticism lacks rationality, it is just an emotional cry.
Your reasonless emotional cry of “Bias confirmed!” is indeed very hypocritical as these papers challenge your dogma and you have no rational reply!
Since you obviously believe global cooling, glaciation, and -100 meters sea level drops were not the cause of the mass extinction event during the Permian, but instead you believe CO2 concentration changes made it “too hot for complex life to survive” (a SkepticalScience.com quote) and the oceans to become too acidic for marine life to survive, would you acknowledge that the latter is also “just another theory of what could have happened”? Or is this the truth?
Do you believe an ice age/global cooling/plummeting sea levels occurred during the Ordovician, and that this wiped out most living species? Or do you believe that the much-higher-than-now CO2 concentrations caused ocean “acidification” and made the planet too hot to survive during the Ordovician extinction event too?
Kenneth, if we compare three possibilities
0) extinction was caused by 2000 ppm / warm / decreasing alkalinity
1) extinction was caused by 300 ppm / sea level drop / glaciation
2) extinction was mainly caused by a rapid change from 0 to 1
I would bet on 2, though it is clear 2000 ppm was better for life in overall than freezing 300 pppm.
This, however, doesn’t mean that increasing atmospheric CO2 to 600 ppm now would be only beneficial. It might might have some clear negative consequences, like peak green agitprop which might lead to civil wars and devastation.
Or how about this: protracted volcanism during the Permian led to global cooling (less solar heat was absorbed by the oceans), the global cooling led to glaciation, and the glaciation led to a dramatic lowering of sea levels that killed off most of the shallow-dwelling marine species due to habitat destruction?
Arefifard, 2018
“The decline and elimination of shallow marine biota in the G-LB interval took place in two steps in the Zagros and Alborz sections and in one step in Central Iran. These are indicative of the appearance of the stressful environment during the late Capitanian shallowing trend before the G-LB. The sea level drop and regression in the late Capitanian can be considered the major causes of end-Guadalupian extinction … Isozaki, Kawahata & Ota (2007), Isozaki, Aljinovic & Kawahata (2011) and Kofukuda, Isozaki & Igo (2014) have speculated that global cooling was a causal factor in the late Capitanian regression. … [T]he temporal coincidence of […] volcanism and Capitanian extinction is viable. This volcanism was deleterious to life, as the extinction event was remarkable among warm shallow water fauna such as fusulinids, foraminifers, corals and calcareous algae, which suggests the cooling resulted from volcanism.”
Event like a mass extinction can not necessarily simply be attributed to one reason so that it would exclude all others. The question of ’cause’ is a philosophical one, and difficult.
We can learn a lot about people’s values by listening how they attribute. Is it bad upbringing, genetic features, or poverty that brings up criminality. Complex issues don’t have simple attributions.
Science is not settled on this one; I find rapid change a good point of attribution, and it does not, in fact, deny that cooling was causing an extinction. It just puts more weight on rapid cooling. I’m already betting nut I can’t say that I’m certainly right; maybe the option 0) caused some of the extinction.
Kenneth,
I’m amazed by seb, both with the way he always come to such an instant dismissal of learned scientific papers, and speed in which he can type such a swift but empty judgement while his cranium is wedged so firmly between his Gluteus maximus musculature.
And to prove it I (dyslexically) typo-ed cranium as canium.
Awestruck by seb’s speed of response, amazing considering.
I’m pretty sure we’re prized with bona fide or even paid activists who actually have a wake-up call set up so that they can as-soon-as possible “debunk” stuff they don’t like.
Which is basically every single opinion by our host.
I would not be surprised if there were discussions by these activists and each had their own sites and shifts. Their response is so fast I don’t believe it is just random; it has to come from a deep will to be the first to comment.
Some call these people just resident alarmists or worse; but given how detailed knowledge some them have on specific topics, I do believe they also sometimes might have a career in the university-level alarmism industry.
To be fair to seb, I dismiss a lot of papers in seconds just by looking at the spin by which the university sells them. For real. Some results stink not because of the results only, but because of the missing counterarguments. Like, “_compared to how much poor people drink,_ they have a lot of Alzheimer’s”.
Often the science itself is not _so_ bad, just the conclusions, recommendations and press releases.
Remember that all those affect future funding.
SebastianH believes that an increase in volcanic activity during the Permian actually caused warming…
He doesn’t know that rapid increases in volcanic activity actually leads to cooling, as the aerosols block out the Sun’s radiance.
And I thought seb didn’t believe CO2 came from volcanoes… not enough to have any effect on atmospheric CO2 levels, anyway.
Poor seb, notice how difficult he is finding it to keep his numerous lies and distortions together.
Quite funny if it weren’t so pitiful.. 🙂
Exactly. According to SebastianH’s preferred source of information, volcanoes only emit about 1/100ths as much CO2 as humans do. Therefore, to increase CO2 levels to a level of 3000 ppm, volcanic activity needed to be about 1,000 times greater than it is today back during the Permian, when CO2 levels fluctated between 280 ppm and 2800 ppm. And if volcanic activity was 1,000 times greater, that would lead to massive global cooling, not warming. Then, to decrease the CO2 to 280 ppm, the volcanic activity would need to be severely curtailed. And if that happened, we’d get warming. The exact opposite of what SebastianH believes happened.
Yes, it would indeed be difficult to maintain one’s belief in CO2 as climate arbiter with all these contradictions to explain away.
Inspired by SebH, Weird Al wrote this song…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qits3nn73ks
…as a number of us have been telling him off and on for quite a while now.
j.a.t.
I always thought this was more appropriate..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0s_YFLI4G1M
Wth is wrong with you guys? Why are you able to completely ignore what widely cited papers about the Permian Triassic extinction are suggesting happened?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0012821X03003479
https://pubs.geoscienceworld.org/gsa/geology/article-abstract/40/3/195/130777/climate-warming-in-the-latest-permian-and-the?redirectedFrom=fulltext
Why does the appearance of a few papers that suggest an ice age happened completely convince you that this was the case and previous explanations are now invalid because CO2 and Methane were involved?
And another paper:
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/7/e1500470.full
Siberian Traps doesn’t ring a bell?
Nope.
*sigh* … there are no contradictions. Get rid of your imagined mechanisms and selective quotes to explain the world.
Uh, yes, it’s rung a bell for over 25 years…
Campbell et al., 1992
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17831657
The P-Tr extinction event, described by Raup and Sepkoski (18) as the most important in the Phanerozoic record, is best seen in shallow water benthic fauna. It is associated with a period of rapid sea-level fluctuations with an estimated maximum fall in sea level of up to 280 m (19). … These changes in sea level, together with an associated climatic change, are thought to be responsible for the P-Tr extinction event (19).
A global cooling event, associated with the eruption of the Siberian Traps, also may have caused the sea-level fluctuations and P-Tr boundary. Changes in sea level reflect either shifts in the shape of the ocean basins brought about by global tectonics or changes in the amount of water available to the oceans. No tectonic process has been suggested that can produce a rapid, global marine regression-transgression event of the magnitude seen at the P-Tr boundary. Furthermore, the return of sea level to its approximate former position after the regression would require either that the tectonic process that caused the recession was reversed over no more than 1 or 2 million years or that it was followed by a second tectonic process that was approximately equal and opposite to the first. Both of these scenarios are improbable. The global cooling produced by volcanic dust and sulfate aerosols may have been of sufficient intensity to produce a marked expansion in the global ice cap. This hypothesis explains the rapid onset of the regression and its short duration. Once volcanic emissions cease, the dust and SO, are rapidly purged from the atmosphere, the ice cap melts, and sea level returns to its approximate previous position.
So if extensive volcanic eruptions don’t cause a cooling, what caused the cooling during the Little Ice Age? Oceans 2k says it was volcanism, blocking out the Sun’s radiance. You don’t agree?
Do you disagree with John Cook’s blog that humans emit 100 times more CO2 than volcanism does?
I’m just citing scientific papers. And the SkepticalScience blog you prefer.
“Get rid of your imagined mechanisms”
Only one person here coming up with scientifically unsupportable mechanisms.
And that is YOU, seb
You STILL can’t provide one iota of support for ..
CO2 warming of the atmosphere
CO2 causing ocean pH change
CO2 doing anything but enhance plant growth
You are EMPTY of all rational science or thought.
Typical seb,
Framing the argument as an ‘this or that’ and not as additional information to shine light on the dim and distant past is (as usual) seb’s play.
e.g.
“What is wrong with you guys? Why are you able to completely ignore what widely cited papers about the Permian Triassic extinction are suggesting happened?”
The assumption here is to accuse skeptics of ignoring the already documents theories of the distant past. IMO this is a false argument.
This skeptic does not do that but views these papers and seb’s quoted ones as reasonable theories for that far off time.
So seb you are, as usual, very wrong! It is not a ‘this or that’ argument but a ‘this and that’ extension of what has been previously surmised about the history of our planet. If there is to be an argument (and I am not saying there should be) then let it be about how these new papers information can fit in to the older research, and what new attributes can they illuminate about those past events.
I do however hold all of the papers with skepticism, as (IMO) we will never truly know all that happened then but through science and investigation we can advance our knowledge of a few of the past’s major incidents. What appears in all research papers may or may not be accurate, IMO these papers and most others should be held only as small fragments of what could probably have happened. Nothing more.
So you are wrong seb I for sure, and probably the majority of skeptics do not look at these papers as an alternative to the current dogma but as new information, advancing our knowledge, which will either remain or fall through further scientific investigation. Either way I’m glad they were published as they add to the growing canon of reasonable explanations of past events.
This. The mass extinction happened in more than one short pulse. According to science. It also doesn’t explain why there is no coal from that period, etc …
The aerosol effect of volcanism (in modern times) is pretty short lived. You don’t agree?
tomOmason:
*sigh* on the contrary … my argument is that Kenneth seems to be pretty assertive of what probably happened and what didn’t happen. Especially when it involves CO2.
As my very first comment here states “Or … it’s just another theory of what could have happened.”
You wish …
I’ll remind you of your general skepticism towards all papers next time you seem to be very sure that something doesn’t work like science says it works 😉
The Permian mass extinction event (global cooling, plummeting sea levels, glaciation) lasted about 80,000 years, which is about the same time length as the most recent Pleistocene ice age.
https://www.upi.com/Ice-age-not-warming-explains-Permian-Triassic-extinction-event/6871488815458/
“Analysis of the newly dated layers showed a significant reduction of seawater levels during the [Permian] extinction event. The only explanation for such a dramatic decrease in water levels is a sudden increase in ice. The ice age lasted just 80,000 years, but the extreme cold was enough to kill off the majority of marine species.”
Oceans 2k says it was volcanism, blocking out the Sun’s radiance [that caused the Little Ice Age cooling]. You don’t agree?
Depends on whether or not you consider 100s of years (“centennial-scale”) of volcanic forcing “short lived”. I don’t.
https://www.nature.com/articles/ngeo2510
“Our results show that repeated clusters of volcanic eruptions can induce a net negative radiative forcing that results in a centennial and global scale cooling trend via a decline in mixed-layer oceanic heat content.”
That’s much longer than the entire “global” warming recovery that we’ve enjoyed since about the 1920s due to the Modern Grand Maximum. The Little Ice Age lasted about 600 years.
So I’ll ask again: How is it consistent to say that the immense-scale volcanic eruptions documented during the Permian extinction events caused warming when extensive geological evidence — in addition to modern-day analyses — indicate that high volcanic activity causes cooling due to blocking solar heat absorption? Not only that, but considering CO2 levels fluctuated between 280 ppm and 2800 ppm during the Permian, you’re going to need to identify the mechanism that caused the dramatic decline in Permian CO2 levels. Of course, the volcanism->cooling->CO2 drop explanation fully explains this progression (as well as the extinction events). But you believe high volcanic activity causes warming (more CO2) and low volcanic activity causes cooling (less CO2)…so this would not appear to be consistent.
Do you agree with John Cook’s blog that humans emit 100 times more CO2 than volcanic eruptions do? If so, wouldn’t that have required quite a substantial amount of volcanism to elicit CO2 concentrations that reached 3000 ppm?
“The mass extinction happened in more than one short pulse. According to science. It also doesn’t explain why there is no coal from that period, etc …”
Science says that warm to moderate temperatures and high humidity alone do not produce all the conditions necessary for creating coal deposits. Steadily rising sea level and/or steady regional swamp subsidence are also necessary. As a prerequisite to the formation of thick coal seams it is necessary that the rate of vegetable matter accumulation remain in general equilibrium with the rate of rising water levels for relatively long periods. This was happening during the Carboniferous Period,
Permian Period and Triassic Period witnessed predominantly desert-like conditions hence no coal.
Maybe real science has more on this matter than SebastianH can ever understand! Or maybe seb in your imagine world things work differently?
“I’ll remind you of your general skepticism towards all papers next time you seem to be very sure that something doesn’t work like science says it works 😉”
I deny you that because your interpretation of science is at best partial, and more often than not, just wrong. Bloated with your usual hubris, you believe you can audit others about science but you can not because you don’t understand science — period.
Seb, you so much remind me of some dumb school teacher that can not grasp that they are a failure at their chosen profession. They’ll recite their preferred texts without understanding it is utter mindless BS!
And you seb sound just like one of them, stuffed full of misplaced hubris and certainty. Fortunately many of us here can see straight through your crap and nonsense.
I am not dismissing the paper, I am dismissing you guys immediately jumping on it as if it is the savior you have waited for because it has everything in it a skeptic likes. As if no competing theories of what happened existed and even making fun of those theories now you “know” that it could have been global cooling …
We are talking about a time 250 million years ago. And suddenly you seem to be certain that a new theory explains it and everyone else was wrong. It’s an interesting experience watching you guys celebrating everything that confirms your bias.
So writing…
…is substantively addressing the paper (there are 4 referenced new papers here, so which one are you referring to that you say you didn’t dismiss?)
No one has done that. It is commonly known already that ice ages and global cooling events have wiped out species in mass extinction events throughout geological history. These papers are just the most recently published ones to document this. Obviously, for you, this is brand new science. Probably because you’ve closed your eyes and covered your ears anytime science is presented that does not fit into your CO2–>dangerous warming–>mass extinction presuppositions. After all, we all know you believe that more than 30,000 species are currently going extinct every year…and that this isn’t even a big number.
https://notrickszone.com/2017/10/16/recent-co2-climate-sensitivity-estimates-continue-trending-towards-zero/#comment-1232607
SebastianH: “Regarding extinction of species, why do you think 30,000 species lost per year is a big number? We are already at or over that rate.”
No one here is not acknowledging there are competing theories. We all know that you believe that extensive volcanic eruptions caused the CO2 levels to climb to 3,000 ppm and this caused catastrophic warming and acidified oceans.
Again, this isn’t a “new” theory. It’s only new to you because you lack interest in learning about explanations that don’t involve CO2 “pollution”. And no one has written that she or he is certain about anything that happened 260 million years ago. That’s just a word you dishonestly injected into this so as to marginalize those who do not share your CO2-pollution and 30,000-species-a-year-are-going-extinct beliefs.
There’s no celebrating. There’s no “Hurray!” You’re just making this up…because you have nothing else left to argue that’s even remotely substantive.
Have you never before learned of the Ordovician sudden onset ice age as an explanation for the extinction event? Is that brand new information for you too?
“I am not dismissing the paper, I am dismissing you guys immediately jumping on it as if it is the savior you have waited for because it has everything in it a skeptic likes. “
Such an unreasonable and unreasoned response!
This skeptic does not hold that these papers as replacing any previous views, (I doubt any skeptic does) instead they add to the canon of evidence about what may have happened in very ancient times.
Thankfully the material and theory highlighted in these papers will stay or fall as scientific research advances, and not founder on the unreasonable opinion of SebastianH!
The one that made you write this:
Today, scientists have determined that the opposite may be true: the Permian mass extinction event occurred during a period of global cooling, expansive ice sheet growth, relatively low CO2 levels, and a marine-habitat-destroying sea level drop of 100 meters.
What is “In the past it has been widely reported […] Today, scientists have determined that the opposite may be true” then? Do I really have to sift through the comments to highlight the instances you guys did that?
Wow, you are really good at this dishonestly making stuff up thing you are accusing others of.
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/1/5/e1400253.short
https://www.nature.com/articles/nature09678
http://www.bioone.org/doi/abs/10.1670/0022-1511(2007)41%5B483:ADOECD%5D2.0.CO%3B2
Are you suggesting that the accomplished Harvard biologist E.O. Wilson is estimating it wrong? https://www.google.de/search?q=Wilson+extinction+30000
Umm, you are definitely “celebrating” low CO2 up there in the article. As for having nothing else to argue against … sure, how about your assertion that CO2 was low? You posted this graph repeatedly: https://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Permian-CO2-Concentrations-Saunders-Reichow-2009.jpg … do you think it shows low CO2 at the PT transition? Around the 250 Ma mark? Or are the usual timelines for this event (or series of events) suddenly wrong?
No, I haven’t. But just reading about it, there are competing theories for the cause too. Are you dismissing them because they sound contradictory?
Besides: you should probably edit the English Wikipedia page for the PT extinction event and add a section about this ice age / glaciation thing. Or will you be claiming that some “green” authors will block these kinds of additions anyway?
Today, scientists have determined that the opposite may be true: the Permian mass extinction event occurred during a period of global cooling, expansive ice sheet growth, relatively low CO2 levels, and a marine-habitat-destroying sea level drop of 100 meters.
All FOUR referenced papers in the article say that. That’s why I asked you which “paper” you were referring to.
No one has done that. [immediately jumping on it as if it is the savior you have waited for]
Uh, it’s definitely not “jumping on [all 4] of these papers as if they’re the “savior” of anything. Again, we’ve known for a long time that ice ages were often temporally associated with mass extinction events in the geological record. It’s only new information for those who lack interest in learning. No one is amazed or surprised or celebrating. We’ve been aware of this stuff for a long time.
SebastianH, according to IUCN, there has been one single recorded species extinction since 2000. And it had nothing to do with climate. There were 800 recorded species extinctions between 1500 and 2000, making 801 total in the last 518 years. And none of those had anything obvious to do with global warming either — nearly all took place during the Little Ice Age cooling. It is your claim that 30,000 species are going extinct every single year…even though you have no real-world observational data to back this up. All you have are links to papers that claim there will someday be mass extinctions…because that’s what the models say. If you disagree, please provide the list of actual species extinctions for say, 2015. All 30,000 of them. Of course, you don’t have such a list. Because this is a made-up number. You’ll also need to come up with the figure that can be directly attributed to CO2 emissions. None of your links do that either. It’s just assumed.
In what way is it “my” assertion? I’m just reporting what the scientists write. Like in this graph…
https://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Permian-Extinction-Coincided-With-300-ppm-CO2-Isozaki-Servais-2018.jpg
The 251 ma extinction event was associated with an 80,000-year ice age that lowered sea levels dramatically as ice sheets grew on land masses, destroying habitats.
https://www.upi.com/Ice-age-not-warming-explains-Permian-Triassic-extinction-event/6871488815458/
So if the CO2 levels were high 250 million years ago, during the 800,000-year long ice age, that would again show that the CO2 concentration is not a driving mechanism, and if CO2 levels were low during the Permian-Triassic Boundary, that would also show that CO2 concentration is not a driving mechanism. But perhaps you can explain why why CO2 concentrations were low during the Permian. What caused the lowering from 2800 ppm to 280 ppm (or 300 ppm)?
Of course.
No.
I don’t have the authority to edit Wikipedia.
Sheesh, is this the best “rebuttal” you can muster?
It is definetly not. To use your defense: I am just repeating what scientists write. Are you saying the accomplished Harvard biologist who wrote this is wrong?
And how does this graph differ from say this graph? https://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Permian-CO2-Concentrations-Saunders-Reichow-2009.jpg
Again, you should probably edit the Wikipedia page to reflect on this and tell all the other scientists what really happened back 251 Ma ago.
Huh? 80000 years not 800000 years according to your paper and link, right?
According to your graph and all I can find about the extinction event CO2 was high, suggesting a very warm climate.
CO2 either high or low not being a driving mechanism doesn’t make sense, Kenneth. Besides, the CO2 was most likely released by volcanism and burning fossil fuels … again, I am just repeating what scientists said: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2018/mar/12/burning-coal-may-have-caused-earths-worst-mass-extinction
They weren’t? For “brief” times according to your graph in colder periods. At these times the equilibrium between the atmosphere and nature/oceans was lower than at high CO2 times. Who knows what really happened, but even 10 degrees difference doesn’t cause the CO2 levels to increase/decrease by this much. If you are imagining that.
Rebuttal of what? I am just saying that you should not be claiming that the PT extinction event was caused by an ice age. And in case you’ll reply that you are just repeating scientists … so am I and so is the rest of the literature that provides information about this event.
Write to them, that they are missing an essential part. So far it just looks like skeptics being happy about a few papers that suggest it could have been an ice age because some sea level decrease happen 250+ Ma ago. Excluding CO2 and warming from causing anything is always good, right? 😉
It is your claim that 30,000 species are going extinct every single year
So why do you believe that the “accomplished Harvard biologist” who claims that 30,000 species are going extinct every single year (300,000 species per decade!) is right if even the activist conservation group IUCN only documents 801 confirmed species losses since 1500 AD, and just 1 since 2000? Do you have any skepticism at all about claims like this, or is your inclination to believe in catastrophes affecting your judgment here? By the way, what percentage of the 300,000 species losses per decade (versus the <1 documented species loss per decade recorded by IUCN) are due to human CO2 emissions? Do you have that direct link...or is just believing enough?
They differ quite a bit. This goes to document (a) the uncertainty and speculation involved in these analyses and (b) probably reflects the lack of temporal resolution from one graph to the next. An 80,000-year ice age may not show up as part of a trend on a graph that shows 10 million-year period encompassing 1 cm of graphical space.
I don’t have the authority to edit the Wikipedia page. Just like I didn’t as of the last post in which you wrote this exact same thing. How often will you be repeating this?
I erred. I added a zero accidentally.
So when you see that CO2 was low (280 ppm to 300 ppm), does that suggest that the temperatures were cold and sea levels were very low? What caused those dips in CO2 concentration since you believe that high volcanic activity causes warming and high CO2? How did Permian CO2 values oscillate, and dip down so low? What’s the mechanism? Will you continue to avoid answering why you believe high levels of volcanic activity causes warming instead of cooling?
Do you believe SkepticalScience is right, and that humans emit 100 times more CO2 than volcanism does? If so (and I assume you agree with John Cook and his blog), wouldn’t there need to be quite a bit more volcanism during the Permian than now to raise CO2 levels from 280 ppm to 2800 ppm? And why did all that volcanism cause warming…since it is well documented that high levels of volcanism cause cooling because the particulates block the Sun’s radiance from heating the oceans…as Oceans 2k has claimed happened to cause the Little Ice Age? Will you ever respond to these questions that emphasize the inconsistencies in your beliefs?
Temperature changes were the driver of CO2 changes. You’ve agreed with that before…for the Holocene! Remember, you’ve claimed that 16 ppmv/K worked for the Holocene, including during the Little Ice Age (even though it didn’t)? Now you’re claiming something different: that Permian CO2 fluctuations between 280 ppm and 2800 ppm weren’t caused by temperature changes, but CO2 changes caused the temperature changes, and the CO2 changes were caused by high vs. low volcanic activity (i.e., high volcanic activity causes warming, low volcanic activity causes cooling…even though this is inconsistent with the well-documented link between high volcanic activity and cooling). At what point are all these explanations even remotely consistent?
So what caused it then? Keep in mind that volcanic activity much be 100 times greater than it is now to even match the human CO2 output…according to your own blogs.
So what caused the CO2 concentration to rise from 280 ppm to 2800 ppm?
Scientists have been writing about the dramatic drop in sea levels during the PT extinction event for decades. By what other mechanism do sea levels drop other than by stored H2O on land (glaciation/cooling)?
Campbell et al., 1992
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17831657
The P-Tr extinction event, described by Raup and Sepkoski (18) as the most important in the Phanerozoic record, is best seen in shallow water benthic fauna. It is associated with a period of rapid sea-level fluctuations with an estimated maximum fall in sea level of up to 280 m (19). … These changes in sea level, together with an associated climatic change, are thought to be responsible for the P-Tr extinction event (19).
A global cooling event, associated with the eruption of the Siberian Traps, also may have caused the sea-level fluctuations and P-Tr boundary. Changes in sea level reflect either shifts in the shape of the ocean basins brought about by global tectonics or changes in the amount of water available to the oceans. No tectonic process has been suggested that can produce a rapid, global marine regression-transgression event of the magnitude seen at the P-Tr boundary. Furthermore, the return of sea level to its approximate former position after the regression would require either that the tectonic process that caused the recession was reversed over no more than 1 or 2 million years or that it was followed by a second tectonic process that was approximately equal and opposite to the first. Both of these scenarios are improbable. The global cooling produced by volcanic dust and sulfate aerosols may have been of sufficient intensity to produce a marked expansion in the global ice cap. This hypothesis explains the rapid onset of the regression and its short duration. Once volcanic emissions cease, the dust and SO, are rapidly purged from the atmosphere, the ice cap melts, and sea level returns to its approximate previous position.
“Excluding CO2 and warming from causing anything is always good,”
Do you have ANY PROOF WHATSOEVER that Co2 causes warming or anything else (apart from plant growth)
NOPE.. you are TOTALLY EMPTY.
Just “imagine” seb, just MAKE-BELIEVE
“Temperature changes were the driver of CO2 changes. You’ve agreed with that before…for the Holocene! ”
did seb really say that ?
WOW !!
he must be saying that cooling causes aCO2 to increase.
https://s19.postimg.cc/86sf607w3/EPICA_v_GRIP.png
“Now you’re claiming something different:”
yep, seb has been really making a muddle of his fairy-tales, lately.
He switches from Grimm Bros to Hans Christian Andersen to Perrault or Jacobs
Its as though he is channelling parts of each of them in a schizophrenic fever in his efforts to find something, anything, to support his claims of CO2 doing anything but enhance plant growth.
At least he is unlikely to start channelling sci-fi authors.. many of those had strong science backgrounds, which seb can only imagine he has.
I have been preparing a talk for later this year about the end Permian extinction and have been struggling with the ‘official’ explanation, which appeared to be nonsense, unaware of the original paper let alone these 2. Now that SebastianH has rejected them I can use them in the talk with confidence.
Thank you, Kenneth.
You got a chuckle here.
So it’s not only confirmation bias, but childish “whatever an opponent says must be wrong”. Skepticism at its finest …
Seb’s scientific emptymess, at its ignorant, arrogant worst.
You are well known as being chronically, belligerently and wilfully WRONG on basic everything.
Only time you get something correct is by accident.
If seb doesn’t like what a paper says, then that paper has a far better than even chance of being somewhere near reality.
seb lives in a brain-hosed anti-world, totally depleted of rational science and rational thought.
I’ll put that to the test. If you guys automatically like what I or other opponents don’t like, without being skeptical as you claim you are, then it should be easy to trick you. I suppose you have been tricked a lot by the resulting current confusion in the pseudoskeptic scene …
It was sarcasm. Wow.
No, we really do not look to your comments to discern right from wrong, truth from falsehood. It takes a special brand of hubris to think this was anything other than a tongue-in-cheek comment.
You really are turning into a [snip], seb.
You have NOTHING to back up any of your mindless AGW cultism..
And I’m pretty sure you KNOW that, and are just stuck in a very LONELY existence, where any attention you can get is good attention.
All the confusion is in AGW cultism, the story just keeps changing…
… no wonder you can’t keep up.
… no wonder you have to just “make-believe”.
Incoherent non-cognitive dissonance has always been the main content of your fantasy posts.
“I’ll put that to the test.”
What.. seb typing something based on REALITY, and backing it with real science.
That will be great fun to see.
He might even accidentally get something correct again. !!
Are you able to recognize that now? Congratulations!
Apparently, you don’t understand when someone is joking … might be the language barrier again. Hmm.
Don’t worry, seb
Even though you pretend to be very serious ,and actually seem to believe some of the monumental BS you regurgitate..
.. we take EVERYTHING you say as NOTHING more than a JOKE. !
Thankfully the material and theory highlighted in these papers will stay or fall as scientific research advances, and not founder on the unreasonable opinion of SebastianH!
Someday you will understand that my comments are more about the interpretations of papers by you guys than the papers themselves. Of course, sometimes junk science gets posted too, but usually it really is just about the interpretations.
So yes, whatever I write does not make or break scientific papers/findings (that is true for you guys too).
And yet the “interpretations” are predominantly direct quotes from the papers themselves.
Again, the hubris to imagine that we actually thought that what you write makes or breaks scientific papers…
Some day you will understand that your comments are a load of mindless garbage.
Your interpretations are based on zero-science mind-numbed brain-washing
To see that, you would have to be HONEST to yourself.
But honesty is NOT even a tiny part of you.
It is tomOmason who wrote “these papers will […] not f[l]ounder on the unreasonable opinion of SebastianH!”
Apparently he thinks that and is thankful that it’s not the case.
Certainly NOTHING you have offered is any counter to these papers.
They are based on solid, logical science, and stand a whole heap more chance of being correct than anything you have put forward.
That is the case with EVERYTHING you rant about.
Everything you think you know is based on a very low knowledge of basically every facet of science, physics, chemistry, maths and REALITY.
Its as though you exist totally in a cognitively dysfunctional FANTASY world.
SebastianH,
Yet again I try to help you here — the word is founder
a nautical term meaning to wreck, as in “the ship foundered on the rocks”
However I know my skills at education is not so great, so my efforts with you will founder, crushed no doubt on the rock of your mighty superego.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
“Apparently he thinks that and is thankful that it’s not the case.”
And once again you apparently imagine to know how and what I think —
YOU DO NOT,
so seb, stop supposing you do.
Your overexcitable imagination appears to have constructed for you an entirely fake me (tom0mason), and like your imaginings about cAGW it is wrong! 😉
So seb
You now say you never thought your judgment (or opinion) on the subject amounts to anything.
Well, on that point I wholeheartedly agree.
SebastianH
I acknowledge that you are an expert in confirmation bias.
Why should paleo-data be more reliable than modern data? Climatology (if this is climatology) has disgraced itself repeatedly.
You might as well toss a coin to determine whether high, medium, or low [CO2] correlates with extinction events.
For the cerebrally challenged this means there is no relationship.
I agree it is rather difficult to discern a connection when CO2 values rose and fell from 280 ppm to 2800 ppm throughout the Permian…
https://notrickszone.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Permian-CO2-Concentrations-Saunders-Reichow-2009.jpg
James Hansen predicted that a great warming event caused such a die-off, so we know how much credence to put in that idea. None at all, as the vast majority of that blatherer of catastrophic climate change has been grossly wrong in all he has predicted.
http://americablog.com/2013/05/global-warming-we-are-halfway-to-a-mass-extinction-event.html
I wonder what he smokes? Probably the same stuff as Carl Sagan.
Another alarmist report was from a pontificating ‘scientist’ of little merit called Guy McPherson a professor emeritus of evolutionary biology, natural resources and ecology at the University of Arizona. With this sort of baloney being taught, no wonder the understanding of science is as low as seb’s grasp of the subject. Guy McPherson should be ashamed of himself for coming out with such bowel moving bilge!
https://www.alternet.org/environment/mass-extinction-its-end-world-we-know-it
Neither of them seem to understand that paleo-data, be it ice-core, tree-ring, mud-core, rock strata formations etc., does not tell you how the temperature or climate changes on a year to year, or even decade to decade basis but are samples of aggregated periods of time that are naturally averaged (by varying amounts) by the geology/climatology/biosphere about them. Thus it is very difficult (probably impossible) to accurately compare modern instrument data to that extracted from proxies as you do not know all the circumstances and rate of change at play (the world was a very different place back then) when the historic proxy data occurred.
IMO historic climate data only after the closure of the isthmus of South America (around 2.8 million years ago) can be seen a relevant to today, as that is when the world’s geography — especially the ocean currents — started to be similar to now.
However as seb rejects these papers so sneeringly, and, as usual, without any real scientific argument I shall have to look at them anew. Unlike J. Hansen’s efforts they probably have some true scientific merit.
Not wanting to burst anyone’s bubbles here, but speaking as a geologist these papers are relating an event in the Middle Permian (~259Ma) and not the huge mass extinction event that occurred at the Permo-Triassic boundary (~251Ma). The roughly 8 million years between these 2 events is significant.
While I think the papers themselves are very interesting, we need to be careful we are discussing the correct geological events and not dragging a completely discrete and separate event (the Permo-Triassic extinction event) into the discussion. While this end Middle Permian event has a global signature, it is not on the same level as the event at the Permo-Triassic boundary that saw the end of 90% of the recorded species that had flourished until that point.
No bubbles have burst. The 251 ma event also has long been attributed to global cooling from explosive volcanism and dramatic sea level reduction…
Campbell et al., 1992
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17831657
The P-Tr extinction event, described by Raup and Sepkoski (18) as the most important in the Phanerozoic record, is best seen in shallow water benthic fauna. It is associated with a period of rapid sea-level fluctuations with an estimated maximum fall in sea level of up to 280 m (19). … These changes in sea level, together with an associated climatic change, are thought to be responsible for the P-Tr extinction event (19).
A global cooling event, associated with the eruption of the Siberian Traps, also may have caused the sea-level fluctuations and P-Tr boundary. Changes in sea level reflect either shifts in the shape of the ocean basins brought about by global tectonics or changes in the amount of water available to the oceans. No tectonic process has been suggested that can produce a rapid, global marine regression-transgression event of the magnitude seen at the P-Tr boundary. Furthermore, the return of sea level to its approximate former position after the regression would require either that the tectonic process that caused the recession was reversed over no more than 1 or 2 million years or that it was followed by a second tectonic process that was approximately equal and opposite to the first. Both of these scenarios are improbable. The global cooling produced by volcanic dust and sulfate aerosols may have been of sufficient intensity to produce a marked expansion in the global ice cap. This hypothesis explains the rapid onset of the regression and its short duration. Once volcanic emissions cease, the dust and SO, are rapidly purged from the atmosphere, the ice cap melts, and sea level returns to its approximate previous position.
—
Also, recently (referenced in the introduction to the article)…
—
Baresel et al., 2017
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2017/03/170306091927.htm
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/314264904_Timing_of_global_regression_and_microbial_bloom_linked_with_the_Permian-Triassic_boundary_mass_extinction_Implications_for_driving_mechanisms
https://www.nature.com/articles/srep43630
The Earth has known several mass extinctions over the course of its history. One of the most important happened at the Permian-Triassic boundary 250 million years ago. Over 95% of marine species disappeared and, up until now, scientists have linked this extinction to a significant rise in Earth temperatures. But researchers have now discovered that this extinction took place during a short ice age which preceded the global climate warming. It’s the first time that the various stages of a mass extinction have been accurately understood and that scientists have been able to assess the major role played by volcanic explosions in these climate processes.
(press release) Analysis of the newly dated layers showed a significant reduction of seawater levels during the [Permian] extinction event. The only explanation for such a dramatic decrease in water levels is a sudden increase in ice. The ice age lasted just 80,000 years, but the extreme cold was enough to kill off the majority of marine species.
Exactly Kenneth,
IMO these new papers do not offer so much a radical alternative theory of the past, they just add some flesh to the bones of this part of earth’s history with a clarification of the probable event sequencing.
[…] Read rest (and papers) at No Tricks Zone […]
[…] Cold caused the Permian Mass Extinction:https://notrickszone.com/2018/05/28/2-new-papers-permian-mass-extinction-coincided-with-global-coolin… […]
[…] Cold caused the Permian Mass Extinction:https://notrickszone.com/2018/05/28/2-new-papers-permian-mass-extinction-coincided-with-global-coolin… […]
[…] Cold caused the Permian Mass Extinction: https://notrickszone.com/2018/05/28/2-new-papers-permian-mass-extinction-coincided-with-global-coolin… […]
[…] Cold caused the Permian Mass Extinction: https://notrickszone.com/2018/05/28/2-new-papers-permian-mass-extinction-coincided-with-global-coolin… […]
Given the nature of the volcanic eruption and its duration it would be logical to assume that the type of volcanic gases emitted by the Siberian traps eruption would be similar to what we have at Hawaii today. The gases would be rich in SO2 instead of CO2 and would result in sulphuric acid aerosols that would cool the planet and damage the ecosystem with VOG and acid rain.