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In the past these things have been slow gadual processes taking hundreds of thousands if not millions of years. The phytoplankton back adapted to the high acid
by j-pb 6y ago
In the past these things have been slow gadual processes taking hundreds of thousands if not millions of years.
The phytoplankton back adapted to the high acidity.
The phytoplankton we have today evolved to fit our current acidity.
They are two entirely distinct sets of species that evolved to optimally adapt to the conditions of their time.
But now we're changing the acidity of the oceans at a much faster pace. In a matter of years, not millennia.
The plankton does not have the time to adapt to these conditions and will thus die. Just like we've already seen in coral reefs.
The population will rebound eventually, but that again, will probably take millennia.
- soperj 6y ago>In the past these things have been slow gadual processes taking hundreds of thousands if not millions of years. How is that actually true, but at the same time the melting of the permafrost will result in very large releases of CO2, NO and Methane? One of these must be false. Phytoplankton also live for very short periods of time, no more than a few days, they would likely adapt more readily to change than longer lived organisms.
- j-pb 6y agoEven with the high reproduction rate, even 100 years with lower oxygen levels would be devastating. Also, the gases in permafrost accumulated of milennia of decay processes. So I don't get your point.
- soperj 6y agoThe point is that if there is a trigger that releases them that will cause devastating knock on global warming, that will have also occurred in the past, and it's not a slow gradual process that life has millions of years to adapt to.
- j-pb 6y agoa.) co2 fluctuations might have never been large enough to trigger the effect. b.) there have been plenty off mass extinctions in the past, the question is: do you want to be in one
- hollerith 6y agoco2 levels in the air have been higher in the past million years than they are now or will be in 50 years.
- philipkglass 6y agoAtmospheric CO2 levels are currently higher than they have been in the past 3 million years. https://e360.yale.edu/digest/co2-concentrations-hit-highest-levels-in-3-million-years https://e360.yale.edu/digest/co2-concentrations-hit-highest-...
- soperj 6y agoFrom your article: >The last time CO2 levels were this high was during the Pliocene Epoch, 5.3 to 2.6 million years ago, when the Earth was several degrees warmer, sea levels were an estimated 50 feet higher than they are today, and forests grew as far north as the Arctic. Doesn't really point to phytoplankton populations crashing as being a likely scenario.
- j-pb 6y agoLike I said. The phytoplankton of that time, is not the same phytoplancton we have today. There are evolutionary drivers that push lifeforms towards efficiency. A thick, protein rich, acid resistant shell is much more expensive, than a thin, calcium rich one. Well... until the day a new outlier species comes along and turns back the clock by 3 million years, in 100. To put that into perspective, it's like asking you on vacation to the bahamas giving 7 days to pack your stuff, and when the time to leave arrives I yell: "Surprise! We're actually going to siberia, time to pack your winter coat, the plane leaves in 20 SECONDS!"