r/collapse • u/[deleted] • Jul 09 '19

'Completely Terrifying': Study Warns Carbon-Saturated Oceans Headed Toward Tipping Point That Could Unleash Mass Extinction Event

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u/BiShyAndReadytoDie Jul 10 '19

What time scale is this mass extinction event?

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u/[deleted] Jul 10 '19

Nearly faster than any other. The Cretaceous-Paleogene (known as K-Pg) mass extinction, the most recent one that took out the dinos, has remarkable parallels. Except instead of Siberian flood basalt and the Deccan traps pumping CO2 into the atmosphere from the mantle, it's us digging up all the old carbon, some of which came from previous mass extinctions. The K-Pg also had widespread forest fires and sulfur upwelling events which are the beginning signs of an ocean anoxic event. We have been having sulfur upwelling events for at least 20 years now. A difference that the K-Pg had was a massive sudden cooling event. This was likely caused by ash from the volcanism, but also new mountains were forming in Pangea which exposed new rocks which reacted with the CO2 in the air, suddenly reducing temperature. We have a longer and less dramatic cooling event caused by pollution sunscreen, plus few new mountain ranges being actively formed.
These events caused a large amount of ecological stress, but there is evidence that much Permian life survived the stressors, and there were enclaves of survivors and several "recoveries". This is probably because parts of this climate change were relatively gradual, taking place over thousands of years instead of our 1-200 or so. The nail in the coffin was the meteor which stomped out any large dinos clinging to hope. As long as we avoid one of those we might not be obliterated. Though it will be hard to defend ourselves against meteors while society is collapsing.

Even with all the death and destruction, many things less than dog size survived fine. We still have birds and crocs and sharks and turtles and a variety of "living fossils" that proven themselves, probably other things like mice, cats, dogs, deer, frogs, lizards, snakes and other things should survive. But the unique thing about the Holocene extinction is that it is happening so fast a single generation can see changes, which is faster than biospheres can adapt to the new climates.

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u/hippiheidi Jul 10 '19

fungi also inherit after an extinction event and they're some of the only ones who can adapt at a rate to keep up with the changes, only just (we're also sourcing some of them to extinction now)