New Study Finds Weak CO2-Induced Warming An ‘Implausible’ Explanation For The End-Triassic Mass Extinction

Evidence that temperature swings of ±17°C occurred during the end-Triassic mass extinction event imply that CO2 would have needed to increase 8- to 1,024-fold (3 to 10 doublings) to have induced that magnitude of temperature change. It didn’t.

Evidence from a new study (Petryshyn et al., 2020) suggests “repeated” temperature swings of 16-17°C occurred in Cotham Marble (CM, southwest United Kingdom) at the end of the Triassic epoch, when the worst extinction event of the last 500 million years occurred.

However, Petryshyn and colleagues acknowledge they “cannot resolve millennial-scale increases in temperatures in the region, implying that, at least locally, the initial extinction is not attributable to extreme warming.”

But even if the end-Triassic mass extinction (ETME) could be attributable to extreme warming, CO2 would be “implausible” as a mechanism.

According to models, CO2 increases up to 8 times the pre-industrial baseline (280 ppm) could only increase sea surface temperatures 5.4°C at most (Petryshyn et al., 2020). CO2 concentrations would need to increase up to 1,024-fold to elicit temperature changes reaching 16 or 17°C.

Therefore, “the initial onset of the biodiversity crisis may necessitate another mechanism.”

Image Source: Petryshyn et al., 2020

15 responses to “New Study Finds Weak CO2-Induced Warming An ‘Implausible’ Explanation For The End-Triassic Mass Extinction”

  1. Brian James

    Sep 12, 2020 Science Based Policy Versus Superstition

    Sweden’s policy is based on science. The UK policy is based on junk science and superstition, and the UK is paying for the ignorance of their government.

    https://youtu.be/eOvOHiuKS40

  2. William Astley

    The evidence is no cooling and only seasonal temperature variation. This is no surprise as there are say a hundred different observations and analysis results that show human CO2 emissions did not cause the recent CO2 rise and the recent CO2 rise did not cause the temperature rise followed by a plateau in temperature when the sun suddenly changed.

    “We find mild to warm ocean temperatures during the extinction event and evidence for repeated temperature swings of ~16 °C, which we interpret as a signature of strong seasonality.”

    So the CO2 rise did not cause warming which is a paradox for the concept that atmospheric CO2 changes cause temperature changes. There are dozen of other more recent observational paradoxes for the CO2 temperature concept.

    Temperature and CO2, are not correlated in the paleo record.

    Our concern should be what caused the YD abrupt cooling drop in temperature. That is recent and it is the last ‘Heinrich’ Event which are cyclic. Cause unknown. And it is something big enough to cool the Northern Hemisphere abruptly, interglacial warm to glacial cold, for 1200 years, at a time when summer solar insolation at 65N, was maximum.

    The Heinrich ‘events’ correlate with magnetic field excursions. A magnetic field excursion, is a time when a region of the surface of the planet for some unexplained reason, suddenly changes polarity.

    In the last 10 years it has been found that the geomagnetic field is changing abruptly again and again and again.

    These abrupt changes to the geomagnetic field come in a small, medium, and large ‘version’. Same mechanism and the geomagnetic field changes are in the same regions.

    The geomagnetic field changes correlate with small, medium, and large planetary temperature changes.

    The Gothenburg magnetic excursion is an unexplained large region of the earth’s surface where the geomagnetic field polarity suddenly, reversed at the same time the planet abruptly cooled for 1200 years.

    Curiously the geomagnetic field has recently suddenly for unexplained reasons changed.

    http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1029/2010EO510001/pdf

    What Caused Recent Acceleration of the North Magnetic Pole Drift?

    http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/003358947790031X

    The Gothenburg Magnetic Excursion

    http://link.springer.com/article/10.1134%2FS0016793212050076#

    Manifestation of the gothenburg geomagnetic field excursion in sediments on the northwestern Central Russian Upland

    Abstract
    The Gothenburg Magnetic Excursion in a broad sense ranges from 13,750 to 12,350 years BP and ends with the Gothenburg Magnetic Flip at 12,400−12,350 years BP (= the Fjärås Stadial in southern Scandinavia) with an equatorial VGP position in the central Pacific.

    The Gothenburg Magnetic Flip is recorded in five closely dated and mutually correlated cores in Sweden. In all five cores, the inclination is completely reversed in the layer representing the Fjärås Stadial dated at 12,400−12,350 years BP. The cores were taken 160 km apart and represent both marine and lacustrine environments.

    1. pochas94

      I’d really like to read some physical theory on how magnetic fields cause major temperature swings. Don’t be bashful.

      1. pochas94

        I don’t mean correlations, please. I’m looking for causation, using physics to provide an explanation for the correlation.

    2. bonbon

      It looks like geomagnetic excursions are linked to Solar activity. GCR’s will then correlate, and Svensmark’s well known work will come into play.
      Even on short timescales GCR’s figure in Forbush decreases, linked to CME’s.
      It would be interesting to check recent geomagnetic inclinations with major CME’s or flares. We might expect some now with the quiet Sun, rather like the Carrington Event.

  3. While the “Party of Science” Are Ignoring Both Empirical Observations on the Ground and Real Peer Reviewed Science .. They Claim Arsonists Bad Deeds is the Act of Mother Nature – Hasslefree Allsort

    […] New Study Finds Weak CO2-Induced Warming An ‘Implausible’ Explanation For The End-Triassic Mass … […]

  4. Graeme No.3

    Very timely. I am reading Ward & Kirschvink A New History of Life, and CO2 runaway ‘Greenhouse’ warming causing extinctions figures prominently, even to the extent of claiming that a greenhouse works because the glass doesn’t transmit infrared.
    This was debunked in 1910, and even earlier (1820’s) Fournier, who coined the phrase Greenhouse atmosphere, pointed out that a ‘greenhouse’ would only be possible if a section of the atmosphere solidified without change in optical properties. It’s lack of free circulation. Cooling a real greenhouse is simple, open the vents.

  5. Phil Salmon

    Thanks, a great paper by Petryshyn et al. Once again the default politically mandated interpretation that the end Triassic extinction was a CO2 warming story, is contradicted by evident. Only the PETM is really convincing as a warming relates extinction and it was a very minor one, proving also a big stimulus to mammalian evolution in the longer term. Historic evidence of real harm from warming becomes ever scarcer. Harm from glacial cold is much easier to find.

  6. Phil Salmon
    1. Yonason

      @Phil S.

      I’m guessing it’s a darn good thing the coccolithophores don’t like the cold, because if they did, they would be pulling CO2 out of the biosphere at a time when CO2 levels are already dangerously low.
      https://youtu.be/2kIcFIofUHk?t=844

      Elsewhere Patrick Moore has suggested that we might at some point have to do more to add CO2 to the atmosphere. Sounds like a good idea to me, but I doubt we could add enough to make a difference.

      1. Phil Salmon

        Patrick Moore was a smart guy always worth listening to

        https://youtu.be/BW7AsjQ2noM

        1. Yonason

          Yup.

          Thanks, Phil!

          1. Yonason

            Both of them. 😁

  7. Weekly Climate and Energy News Roundup #425 |

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