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Politics : Formerly About Advanced Micro Devices -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: combjelly who wrote (753268)	11/18/2013 7:24:38 AM
From: Jorj X Mckie	2 Recommendations Recommended By FJB TideGlider Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 1578428

It is primarily driven by biological ones. The geological ones are only significant in the absence of significant biological activity. Actually, what I said was that it was a combination of biological and geological. The biological component is obvious to everyone. The geologic component is often overlooked. The carboniferous period was given that name for a reason. It was a period when the geologic configuration was conducive to massive prolonged sequestration of carbon on the continents. The cretaceous period had geologic conditions that were also conducive to carbon sequestration on continental material. There were several causes. But, except for a possible collision event, all revolve around CO2 sooner or later. The C12/C13 ratio is strong evidence that there was a general clathrate destabilization, probably because of warming water due to rising CO2 emissions, resulting in a massive release of methane in a very short period of time. Methane is a more powerful greenhouse gas than CO2, but gets oxidized to CO2 very quickly. And this is where your theories fall apart. You take a fact "general clathrate destabilization", coupled with speculation "probably because of warming water" and then assign a definitive causal relationship to something that has yet to be established. It is very safe to say that there was a clathrate destabilization It's not a bad theory to speculate that this was caused by warming water. But it isn't the only possible explanation. Warming oceans negate the evidence that the extinction of marine life was especially focused on marine life that formed calcium carbonate structures (shells, bones, etc...). Warming oceans become CO2 pumps, not sinks. They give up their CO2. And the warming started before any increase in CO2 or in fact, any increase in vulcanism. Further, the Permian extinction event came on the heels of one of the greatest carbon sequestration periods in earth's history. Since the extinction event not only hit marine life, but also hit both flora and fauna, we can assume that the event was systemic and had a negative impact on all life. Of course, rising atmospheric CO2 and temperatures would have a positive effect on plant life, so that needs to be addressed. So what do we know: -We know that there was a Clathrate Destabilization somewhere around the time of the permian extinction event -We know that there were low levels of atmospheric CO2 at the beginning of the Permian -We know that global temperatures were generally cool at the beginning of the Permian with a fairly rapid rise starting in the middle and up to the end of the Permian -We know that the clathrate destabilization happened long after the temperatures started to rise and somewhere near where the CO2 and temperature levels topped out. -We know that the super continent of Pangea started breaking up through tectonic plate action at the beginning of the Permian. -We know that sea level dropped globally coincident with the breaking up of Pangea. -We know that cooling oceans will be a net carbon sink -We know that warming oceans will be a net carbon pump -We know that water can give up its dissolved CO2 through means other than rising temperature. (e.g. shaking a soda pop or a landslide in lake Nyos en.wikipedia.org -We know that the breaking up of Pangea changed ocean currents. -We know that the triassic and jurassic saw significant growth of both marine and land flora and fauna. -We know that CO2 and global temperatures were only slightly lower during the Triassic and Jurassic than that of the Permian extinction event. -We don't know what caused the clathrate destabilization. It could be warming waters, it could have been clathrate bearing lithe moving to warmer waters through continental drift. It could have been dropping sea levels caused by the breaking up of pangea that allowed more of sun's energy to reach the clathrates. -We don't know what caused the warming waters. It could have been increased solar radiation being emitted by the sun. It could have been changing ocean currents with the new continental configuration. -We don't know why CO2 levels increased. It could have been warmer waters releasing the dissolved CO2. It could have been a disturbance of the oceans through increased seismic activity as Pangea broke up. Or it could have been an asteroid that shook up the bottle of pop. We don't know if CO2 caused the warming or if the warming caused the CO2. And we certainly don't know if it caused the permian extinction event, though it certainly seems unlikely. Likewise, the release of the carbon can occur in a variety of ways. The problem is, that doesn't necessarily occur at a steady rate. As noted, large amount of clathrates can be destabilized in a short period of time. The can be periods of much higher than normal vulcanism. Changing climate can cause bogs to dry out and oxidize. Or melt the permafrost making that methane and sequestered carbon available to the atmosphere. And so on. These events can also be related and have been implicated in the events that end an ice age. In other words, we don't know what caused the clathrate destabilization, let alone the increased levels of CO2 at the time of the Permian extinction event, so it would be foolish to try to draw any correlations or conclusions with our current climate conditions. The point is that the sequestration tends to happen at a slow and steady rate. The reverse does not have to be. That certainly does have a sound of truthiness to it. However, because it tends to happen at a slow and steady rate, does not mean that it always happens at a slow and steady rate. In fact, simple cooling and warming will turn the ocean into a CO2 pump or a sink just like a switch Drop a few tums and maybe the white cliffs of dover into the ocean and I guarantee that you would see increased sequestration very quickly. And this is probably the biggest failing of the lefty environmentalists. For some reason, lefty environmentalists accept without question, that there is such a thing as a normal, predictable and consistent climate pattern. Everything about our climate, in pretty much any timeframe, is in constant flux. Certain carbon sequestration processes are slow and steady, but others can switch back and forth at a high rate of change. Since the AGW fans have based their entire movement on the faulty premise, it is easy to understand why they are so wrong all of the time.with their theories, conclusions and predictions. Atmospheric CO2 is not a constant and has never been a constant. And in fact, a constant and unchanging CO2 level would not necessarily be a good thing anyway. There is definitely climate change...always has been, always will be.