Freewill
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- Oct 26, 2011
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So in the end they are uncertain about what they think might have caused the extinctions. Thus the whole global warming leading to mass extinct really has no basis.Thank you for the articles. The one concerning the Ordovician extinction was new to me. Interesting. The P-T had a lot of causes, stacked up like stair steps according to the articles I have read. First, the Siberian Trapps, the largest flood volcanic province known, may have initially cooled the climate, from aerosols, then warmed it from CO2. Also, the Trapp cooked massive coal deposits and created a lot of CH4. Then the oceans warmed enough to cook off the methane clathrates. Game over, at that point. Many other subsidiary effects left out, such as the production of hydrogen sulfide by the oceans.Timeline of a mass extinctionCould you site the times that there was mass extinctions due to warming temperatures? Please. Are you sure you didn't mean cooling temperatures, you know like when the meteorite hit the Yucatan.Wrong in so many ways. It is not gradual. The combination of industrial, agricultural, and household pollution is having a major effect on our environment already. The warming due to the GHGs in the atmosphere is warming the planet at a rate only seen in the major extinction events from the geological record.It would be a very gradual change, despite the doom and gloom predictions ones sees. Changes on a planetary scale don't happen rapidly, unless you are talking about impact events or massive volcanic activity.
New evidence points to rapid collapse of Earth’s species 252 million years ago.
Jennifer Chu, MIT News Office
November 18, 2011
While the causes of this global catastrophe are unknown, an MIT-led team of researchers has now established that the end-Permian extinction was extremely rapid, triggering massive die-outs both in the oceans and on land in less than 20,000 years — the blink of an eye in geologic time. The researchers also found that this time period coincides with a massive buildup of atmospheric carbon dioxide, which likely triggered the simultaneous collapse of species in the oceans and on land.
With further calculations, the group found that the average rate at which carbon dioxide entered the atmosphere during the end-Permian extinction was slightly below today’s rate of carbon dioxide release into the atmosphere due to fossil fuel emissions. Over tens of thousands of years, increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide during the Permian period likely triggered severe global warming, accelerating species extinctions.
The researchers also discovered evidence of simultaneous and widespread wildfires that may have added to end-Permian global warming, triggering what they deem “catastrophic” soil erosion and making environments extremely arid and inhospitable.
The researchers present their findings this week in Science, and say the new timescale may help scientists home in on the end-Permian extinction’s likely causes.
Timeline of a mass extinction
Since this was written, much more has been discovered. And there was a very rapid warming with a vast methane addition at that time.
Quote: "While the causes are UNKNOWN..." Very first sentence.
Unknown yet they go on to tell you what did happen.
Quote2: "Over tens of thousands of years, increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide during the Permian period likely triggered severe global warming, accelerating species extinctions." Last sentence in red.
Is LIKELY a scientific term that actually means it did? Obviously that is how they are playing the game.
Truth is, they think they might know a likely cause.
Here are two articles on mass extinction which I think you will find interesting:
Information and Facts About Mass Extinctions
New Theory for What Caused Earth's Second-Largest Mass Extinction
That we cannot say with absolute certainty that each of these things occurred as the proxies indicate is simply an indication of the present lack of data. But we are now getting data daily, and, because of the net, it is available to other scientists in the same discipline immediatly. Wonderful, but does make it hard for the interested amateur to keep up.