Recent Studies Indicate Species Extinctions Decline With Warming – Mass Extinction Events Due To COOLING

During the last few hundred years, species extinctions primarily occurred due to habitat loss and predator introduction on islands.  Extinctions have not been linked to a warming climate or higher CO2 levels.  In fact, since the 1870s, species extinction rates have been plummeting.

Image Sources: Loehle & Eschenbach (2012), BBC, Wrightstone, 2019

In the past it has been widely reported that high and abruptly changing CO2 concentrations led to climate conditions that were “too hot for complex life to survive” on the planet.

More recently, though, scientists have determined that the opposite may have been true: mass extinction events occurred during periods of global cooling, expansive ice sheet growth, and marine-habitat-destroying sea level drops of more than 100 meters.

In fact, of the 5 previous mass extinctions, volcanism-induced glaciation is thought to be responsible for the 1st, 3rd, and 4th events, with the 2nd unknown and the 5th from an aseteroid impact.  None of these explanations have ties to CO2 concentrations or sudden warming.

Images Source: Jones et al., 2017, Phys.Org

Image Source: Creveling et al., 2018

Image Source: Isozaki and Servais, 2018

Image Source: Wu et al., 2014

Image Source: Kani et al., 2018

As suggeted above, scientists usually attribute the mass extinction cooling events to the same mechanism previously thought to cause sudden-onset warming: widespread volcanic eruptions.

More volcanism means more sulfate aerosols blocking out solar heat from penetrating into the ocean.  With “repeated clusters” of volcanic events gradually accumulating over time, decades to centuries of cooling can ensue.

Image Source: McGregor et al., 2015

Image Source: UPI.com

New (2019) research suggests that the global cooling extinction events could have been triggered by a solar-astronomical influence.

Again, this suggests no clear link between mass extinctions and CO2-induced or sudden-onset warming events.

Image Source: Isozaki, 2019

Image Source: Fang et al., 2018

16 responses to “Recent Studies Indicate Species Extinctions Decline With Warming – Mass Extinction Events Due To COOLING”

  1. Phil Salmon

    Yes iit does seem quite clear that the monster end-Permian extinction was an ice age, not a heat event.

    Here’s another paper confirming that, Baresel et al 2017:

    https://www.nature.com/articles/srep43630

  2. SebastianH

    Are you suggesting the UN report is false?

    https://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/blog/2019/05/nature-decline-unprecedented-report/

    This report says: “Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented’; Species Extinction Rates ‘Accelerating’”

    Now who is probably representing reality better? An UN report with hundreds of experts contributing or a blogger who compiled a few papers about whether or not cooling might have caused some extinctions as well?

    In fact, of the 5 previous mass extinctions, volcanism-induced glaciation is thought to be responsible for the 1st, 3rd, and 4th events, with the 2nd unknown and the 5th from an aseteroid impact. None of these explanations have ties to CO2 concentrations or sudden warming.

    Really, is that what science thinks of when looking at those mass extinctions?

    https://scholar.google.de/scholar?q=co2+mass+extinction

    1. P Gosselin

      Seb: “Now who is probably representing reality better?”
      That’s easy to answer: https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=o5tlAAAAIBAJ&sjid=TYwNAAAAIBAJ&pg=5103,351973&dq=ecological+holocaust&hl=en
      It’s quite obvious who’s full of sh!t.

    2. Yonason

      ”Are you suggesting that the UN report is false?” – SebH

      Well, it’s not as if their track record is unimpeachable.

      ”The US government says political tampering with scientific findings is a violation of scientific integrity.

      IPCC reports are extensively tampered with by political officials.

      IPCC reports therefore lack scientific integrity.

      People who rely on IPCC reports are basing their decisions on documents that have no scientific integrity.”
      https://nofrakkingconsensus.com/2017/01/29/us-scientific-integrity-rules-repudiate-the-un-climate-process/

      When you tell us someone is reliable, you must make certain there’s no reason to mistrust them. If you can’t manage that, what reason could we possibly have for trusting you?

  3. Reasonable Skeptic

    I have noticed, just my personal opinion of course, that there seems to be a higher level of biodiversity in places that are warm and not cold. I have also noticed that this also applies to areas that have more vegetation that open ground.

    Now, I know that “scientists” say otherwise, but whatever.

  4. Robert Kernodle

    Seb: And, in case you did not notice the date on P Gosselin’s reference, that date was May 1982, and the prediction was that the catastrophic extinction would occur within a decade or two. A decade from that catastrophic prediction would have been 1992. Two decades from that catastrophic prediction would have been 2002. Now here we are approaching three decades after this dire UN prediction, and, … well, … you see how one might ascertain the proper source of the sh!t.

    Also, the link you provided leads to papers that offer mere projections based on the usual flawed models, programed with flawed CO2 biases. Even the wording of the abstracts of those papers is tentative. There’s positively no proof in them that CO2 had didly squat to do with any mass extinction. Your appeal to authorities that habitually rely on plainly inadequate methods of research merely shows that you endorse their shoddy excuse for science.

  5. Wiliam Haas

    Compared to the past, today’s climate change is trivial. Most species that are around today survived many ice age cycles as well as interglacial periods like the Eemian, that were warmer than today.

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  7. John Shade

    I’d like to see a Nobel Prize for the Promotion of Public Understanding of Climate Science, and I’d like Kenneth Richard to be the first recipient of it. His superb contributions on this blog deserve widespread recognition.

  8. tom0mason

    And here’s something that goes against the Greenies ideas of reducing grazing animals and trying to convince everyone to become vegetarians…

    Grazing animal on scrub land near deserts is supposed to be a problem, supposed to exacerbate soil damage and loss. Allan Savory KNOW different! He has experience of changing desert areas back to green pasture. For some banal reason he did not model this first, he just did it. And he found that on marginal land where desertification is likely to happen, more grazing animals, not less, will help stop the desert encroachment and often reverse it.
    His theory and practice aligned, and the evidence speaks for itself. Here is Allan Savory’s TED talk …
    https://www.youtube.com/embed/vpTHi7O66pI

    Take the cattle, bison, sheep, horse, goat, antelope, etc. off the land and watch it all die, watch it change from green and pleasant to becoming barren desiccated husk of many local extinctions.

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