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Old 27-April-2007, 07:48 PM
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Default Serious global warming 55 MYA
Volcanoes Triggered Ancient Warming Event

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The same volcanic eruptions that sundered Greenland from Western Europe and created Iceland also triggered intense global warming 55 million years ago, scientists say.

“There has been evidence in the marine record of this period of global warming, and evidence in the geologic record of the eruptions at roughly the same time,” said study team member Robert Duncan, an oceanic scientist at Oregon State University, “but until now there has been no direct link between the two.”

During the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), massive amounts of greenhouse gases were injected into the oceans and atmosphere, causing global sea surface temperatures to rise by up to 10 degrees Fahrenheit.

The event changed global rainfall patterns, broiled and acidified the oceans, and killed up to 50 percent of the world’s deep-sea organisms. The warm climate also opened up new migration routes for horses and other mammals into North America and might have even fueled early primate evolution.
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Old 27-April-2007, 08:39 PM
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The PETM took roughly 100,000 years to peak, and it was another 100,000 years or so before the climate recovered.
So if it gets too hot, I guess we'll just have to sit tight for 200,000 years or so, and it should work itself out
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Old 27-April-2007, 09:45 PM
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The event changed global rainfall patterns, broiled and acidified the oceans, and killed up to 50 percent of the world’s deep-sea organisms... The warm climate also opened up new migration routes for horses and other mammals into North America and might have even fueled early primate evolution.
An additional 10 degrees "broiled" the oceans and killed 50% of deep-sea organisms--the report lacks credibility.

According to data displayed at athe La Braia tar pits horses originated here in North America and migrated into Asia. None of the water would have been stored as ice on land which should have made migration difficult due to high seas.
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Old 27-April-2007, 11:33 PM
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Looks like all that's left to do to wash our hands of all responsibility is to identify the volcano that is causing global warming today
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Old 28-April-2007, 12:12 AM
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Methane hydrates may have played a major part on this (volcanism -> carbon dioxide -> global warming -> warmer seas -> release of methane -> global warming -> ...) The Permian/Triassic extinction event may been caused by a similar event but in a much larger scale.

On the other hand, volcanism releases a lot of dust which dims the sun, and sulfur oxides, which are good anti-global warming gases. Apparently the event must have released a fair amount of CO2.

BTW, why every press release concerning Eocene mentions horses?!
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Old 28-April-2007, 06:46 AM
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Looks like all that's left to do to wash our hands of all responsibility is to identify the volcano that is causing global warming today
We know how much CO2 is emitted by burning fossil fuels and this is more than enough to account for the increases in CO2 levels. We also know how much CO2 is released by normal volcanoes, less than 1% of anthropgenic emissions. It's unlikely that there is an unnoticed volcano somewhere pumping out tens of thousands of times the usual amount of CO2. We would have noticed the way people would tend to die when approaching it.
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Old 29-April-2007, 03:25 AM
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Originally Posted by Kullat Nunu View Post
Methane hydrates may have played a major part on this (volcanism -> carbon dioxide -> global warming -> warmer seas -> release of methane -> global warming -> ...) The Permian/Triassic extinction event may been caused by a similar event but in a much larger scale.

On the other hand, volcanism releases a lot of dust which dims the sun, and sulfur oxides, which are good anti-global warming gases. Apparently the event must have released a fair amount of CO2.

BTW, why every press release concerning Eocene mentions horses?!
The hard truth, straight from the...well, you get the idea...
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Old 30-April-2007, 08:44 PM
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Originally Posted by Ronald Brak View Post
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Looks like all that's left to do to wash our hands of all responsibility is to identify the volcano that is causing global warming today
We know how much CO2 is emitted by burning fossil fuels and this is more than enough to account for the increases in CO2 levels. We also know how much CO2 is released by normal volcanoes, less than 1% of anthropgenic emissions. It's unlikely that there is an unnoticed volcano somewhere pumping out tens of thousands of times the usual amount of CO2. We would have noticed the way people would tend to die when approaching it.
Ron, the original was tongue-in-cheek
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Old 30-April-2007, 08:52 PM
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BTW, why every press release concerning Eocene mentions horses?!
Exactly!

Eocene equines...they're nothin' but a bunch of nappy-haired horses
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Old 30-April-2007, 09:10 PM
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Ugh. That's better than Imus' light hearted kibuki: Happy headed Noh
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Old 01-May-2007, 01:40 AM
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Well, those early "horses" (Hyracotherium aka Eohippus) was probably not only the ancestor of modern horses, but also the ancestor of rhinos and tapirs.
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Old 01-May-2007, 06:34 PM
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Anyone have a figure estimating exactly how much CO2 was pumped out of the volcanoes 55 MYA, and how it compares, percentage-wise, with what we're pumping out now?
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Old 01-May-2007, 06:35 PM
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The PETM took roughly 100,000 years to peak...
Wow. Ten degrees in 100,000 years. That's quite a drastic (ahem) change.
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Old 03-May-2007, 08:06 PM
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I've heard that near the end of the last ice age, at the beginning of the Younger Dryas period, Earth's global temperature may have plummeted 10°C in three years! More conservative values are decades. Extremely fast climate shift, anyway. It was caused by the release of melt water from Laurentian (North American) ice cap.
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