Earth 'shook off' ancient warming

[Ivan Seeking]

UK scientists claim they now know how Earth recovered on its own from a sudden episode of severe global warming at the time of the dinosaurs.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3451787.stm

 

[Andre]

Interesting, but what is new?
The same event, a massive methane burst from decomposing clathrate happened 55MY ago at the Paleocene - Eocene boundary.

Silicone rock weathering to limestone is well known as a part of the carbon cycle and as a regulating mechanism for atmospheric CO2

The role of warming is pure speculation and not logical. Instead, geographic changes could also account for destabilizing clathrate. Tectonic uplift could also release seawater pressure over large clathrate fields causing the instability

If warming was to cause the clathrate to decompose which causes more greenhouse effect warming, then more warming should decompose even more clathrate, causing even more warming, etc and a "thermal runaway" situation should emerge. this allegedly has happened to Venus too (but not really), hence this would suggest that warming could not be the cause of clathrate destabilisation.

Nowadays, however, it seems to be unthinkable to publish any geologic article and not relating it to global warming somehow.

 

[Evo]

Originally posted by Ivan Seeking
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3451787.stm

From this quote from the story

Calcium combined with CO2, for instance, would have caused the precipitation of calcium carbonate. This process of CO2 consumption would have lowered levels of the greenhouse gas on a global scale.

Sounds like the Earth created it's own widescale version of TUMS to get rid of the gas.

 

[Nereid]

Venus? not just a pretty girl

As Andre said, the carbon cycle is known and (fairly) well understood ... among the cognoscetti . I'm being unfair, IIRC, it has been published in SciAm, and is discussed in Peter Ward's "Rare Earth". Evo's characterisation "Sounds like the Earth created its own widescale version of TUMS to get rid of the gas" is a wonderfully evocative summary (tho' if you don't live in the US, and don't know what "TUMS" is/are ...).

The fly in the ointment is the fact that the Sun is brighter than it was 180 mya, so the distance to a runaway greenhouse is an awful lot closer ... not even notNewton or Bystander (or Russ) would like to live on Venus ... [b(]

 

[Bystander]

"Dr Cohen added that there are still vast reserves of carbon - possibly as much as 14,000 gigatons - locked up as methane ice in ocean sediments.

If global temperatures reach a critical point, it is possible they might suddenly be released into the atmosphere causing a similar event to the one that occurred during the Jurassic. "

40kg/m²? Uh-uh. "... suddenly be released..." Uh-uh ---tain't Lake Nyos. Time for people to read the material on clathrates and their properties in, Water, a Comprehensive Treatise, Felix Franks.

 

[Andre]

Nereid,

Your hints to the mysterous deitic planet suggest that you endorse the wet greenhouse thermal runaway hypothesis for Venus. You're probably also familiar with the hypothesis of the spinning stop of Venus due to atmospheric drag (Correia et al). However, both hypotheses have their weaknesses. One of them being a lack of integration.

Familiar with/interested in Andre's hypothesis of all Venus enigmatic features?

Posted it here about over half a year ago.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

As indicated:
https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2974

 

[Nereid]

Originally posted by Andre
Nereid,

Your hints to the mysterous deitic planet suggest that you endorse the wet greenhouse thermal runaway hypothesis for Venus. You're probably also familiar with the hypothesis of the spinning stop of Venus due to atmospheric drag (Correia et al). However, both hypotheses have their weaknesses. One of them being a lack of integration.

Familiar with/interested in Andre's hypothesis of all Venus enigmatic features?

Posted it here about over half a year ago.

Andre, I looked it over last year, and concluded it'd take me quite some time to come to grips with it sufficiently to post half-way decent questions and challenges. Then I got more interested in other things ... and never got back to it (maybe Nereid is a kind of butterfly?)

 

[Andre]

Thanx Ivan Seeking for digging up that old thread.

https://www.physicsforums.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2974

I put in an overview of the general idea again. Obviously, this would be the wrong thread for it. Of course I like the idea to be understood and challenged, Nereid, to see if can survive a sanity check. For instance, I realize that conservation of momentum is a though discussion item.

 

[Tsu]

Originally posted by Evo
From this quote from the story Sounds like the Earth created it's own widescale version of TUMS to get rid of the gas.

Maybe we should give some to that whale of Ivans! Ivan! Where's the picture of that whale? Show us again!