rod mclaughlin


You can't make it up LXX - global warming is comparable to the Parmian extinction (10 apr 15)

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/ocean-acidification-killed-off-more-than-90-per-cent-of-marine-life-252-million-years-ago-scientists-believe-10165989.html. The Parmian extinction of ~252 million years ago is the greatest known extinction, killing off most species of animals. It appears to have been caused by volcanoes in the "Siberian Traps". Because it coincided with a rapid increase in carbon dioxide, and because the last century has also experienced such an increase, people with a limited grasp of concepts like "causation" are able to draw close analogies between now and then.

"“The important take-home message of this is that the rate of increase of CO2 during the Permian mass extinction is about the same rate as the one to which we are exposing the ocean to today,” said Professor Rachel Wood of the University of Edinburgh."

However,

"“We don’t exactly know what the relation was between the eruption of the Siberian Traps, the production of CO2, global warming and the oceans being starved of oxygen – but we believe there was a relationship,” she said."

This amounts to saying "we know virtually nothing about the cause and effect relationships between the variables". This, from a scientist. Maybe the Independent distorted what professor Wood really said.

 

 



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