A mass extinction event wiped out around 90% of life. What followed has long puzzled scientists: The planet became lethally hot for 5 million years. Researchers say they have figured out why using a vast trove of fossils.
Well, they aren’t exactly “new” fossils, now are they?
But it is good to see clearer evidence of this, this has been the main hypothesis for a while (it also explains why insects died out much more during this extinction even than others, because there was much less vegetation for them to live in/on), though it was probably some other factors as well, there’s rarely ever a simple singular cause and effect when it comes to major changes to the biosphere (at least when it comes to natural extinction events)
It really shows how interconnected the biosphere is, and how little we understand about its dynamics. The fact that we’re changing the climate in such dramatic ways without having much of an idea of what the impact will be is surreal.
Yeah, at some point (which might have already happened) it’ll cascade out in ways we couldn’t really predict. I don’t think anything humans could do would be as bad as the Permian-Triassic extinction event though, that was a uniquely one of a kind awful situation for life on earth. If things get bad enough that we destroy ourselves (or even just industrial civilisation) the biosphere will manage to recover, though obviously it would be better to, you know, not needlessly cause the extinction of millions of species of life on this planet.
I also think it’s unlikely there’s going to be a full on biosphere collapse, but our civilization could certainly crash as we start getting extreme temperatures. Food production is a big vulnerability, and there will probably be more conflicts happening as parts of the world become unlivable.
Well, they aren’t exactly “new” fossils, now are they?
But it is good to see clearer evidence of this, this has been the main hypothesis for a while (it also explains why insects died out much more during this extinction even than others, because there was much less vegetation for them to live in/on), though it was probably some other factors as well, there’s rarely ever a simple singular cause and effect when it comes to major changes to the biosphere (at least when it comes to natural extinction events)
It really shows how interconnected the biosphere is, and how little we understand about its dynamics. The fact that we’re changing the climate in such dramatic ways without having much of an idea of what the impact will be is surreal.
Yeah, at some point (which might have already happened) it’ll cascade out in ways we couldn’t really predict. I don’t think anything humans could do would be as bad as the Permian-Triassic extinction event though, that was a uniquely one of a kind awful situation for life on earth. If things get bad enough that we destroy ourselves (or even just industrial civilisation) the biosphere will manage to recover, though obviously it would be better to, you know, not needlessly cause the extinction of millions of species of life on this planet.
I also think it’s unlikely there’s going to be a full on biosphere collapse, but our civilization could certainly crash as we start getting extreme temperatures. Food production is a big vulnerability, and there will probably be more conflicts happening as parts of the world become unlivable.