Thawing permafrost 50 million years ago led to extreme global warming events

http://phys.org/news ^ | 04-09-2012 | Provided by University of Massachusetts at Amherst

[DBrow]

“polar permafrost carbon deposits have begun to thaw due to burning fossil-fuels,”

So what was the cause of the permafrost thaw 50 MY ago? Fer shur it was not burning fossil fuels.

This is an unfounded assertion based on political correctness and imposition of Official Reality.

[DrC]

“what caused the permafrost to thaw?”

Apparently you are unaware of man’s massive burning of carbon-based fuels 55 million years ago....

More seriously, this I believe is the explanation:
“PETM and other hyperthermals occurred during periods when Earth’s orbit around the sun was both highly eccentric (non-circular) and oblique (tilted)”

I gather that this is a “feedback” explanation: initial warming caused by variations in Earth’s orbit that placed it closer to the sun triggers a release of carbon which in turn creates a global warming effect that amplifies this initial warming, so then the patterns keeps repeating/amplifying. Of course, if it keeps amplifying, it’s not obvious to me (I’m no climate scientist) what makes the cycle stop and reverse. Nevertheless, as explained, the cycle sounds plausible, and note that there is ZERO contribution of humans to make it happen!

[UCANSEE2]

"an orbital-permafrost soil carbon mechanism provides a unifying model accounting for the salient features of the hyperthermals that other previously proposed mechanisms fail to explain."

Maybe it used to be cloudy all the time.

[UCANSEE2]

The orbit of the earth alters periodically, slowly, over thousands of years, to where the opposite is true for a looooong time until it comes back to the beginning of the cycle............

True. Also true is that WINTER for us is SUMMER for those in the Southern Hemisphere.

The point is that whether closer or further away, the temp of the Earth doesn't change, or the change is so small it is negligible.

[theBuckwheat]

Today, on Anthony Watt’s blog, is an important discussion directly related to this topic:

Did Shakun et al. really prove that CO2 preceded late glacial warming? [Part 1]

http://wattsupwiththat.com/2012/04/08/did-shakun-et-al-really-prove-that-co2-precede-late-glacial-warming-part-1/

[norwaypinesavage]

"Scientist Rob DeConto of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and colleagues elsewhere propose a simple new mechanism to explain the source of carbon that fed a series of extreme warming events"

I have an even simpler model of global warming that these idiots seem to have missed: Warming causes Thawing

I validate this model every time I take a chicken out of the freezer. Some how these geniuses want us to believe the opposite i.e. that the initial warming that caused the melting in the first place is NOT responsible for the subsequent warming. I simply don't buy it.

[UCANSEE2]

Earth’s orbit around the sun was both highly eccentric (non-circular) and oblique (tilted)”

Tilted? in relation to what? And why would that matter?

However, let's go with that theory.

initial warming caused by variations in Earth’s orbit that placed it closer to the sun triggers a release of carbon which in turn creates a global warming effect that amplifies this initial warming, so then the patterns keeps repeating/amplifying.

If the Earth occupies a HIGHLY ECCENTRIC orbit, then not only is it CLOSER to the SUN for a short amount of time but it is also FURTHER from the SUN for a much longer amount of time.

This would make it an iceball that gets ICE burnt off it's equator once a 'year'. (Wonder how long a 'year' was back then?)

[UCANSEE2]

“PETM and other hyperthermals occurred during periods when Earth’s orbit around the sun was both highly eccentric (non-circular) and oblique (tilted)”

And since neither of these is true of the Earth's orbit currently, the basis for their model is false.

[aruanan]

Thawing permafrost 50 million years ago led to extreme global warming events

This would have been before the advent of the industrial revolution, right? Also, I'm thinking it was probably an extreme global warming event that led to the thawing permafrost as well as to the temporary end of all of the previous glaciations.

[Hillarys Gate Cult]

I a related story I caught the very end of James Cameron’s new documentary about the Titanic on the National Geographic Channel. He spends the last minute whining about the next “iceberg” to hit us all, global warming. Avoid this show at all costs.

[pabianice]

Ah, yes; UMass/Amherst, my alma matter. Where snarly, IQ 80 “victims of a racist, homophobic, sexist, white society” can get a “Doctorate in Social Justice.” ANYTHING coming out of UMass that is not engineering, physical science, or forestry, has become a huge pile of crap.

[Dudoight]

Read the original article and they blame the perma frost melting because of burning of fossil fuel. It’s still ‘man made’.

[epithermal]

The picture of the North Slope is missing one very important feature: the trillions of mosquitoes that inhabit that place! In the summer the swarms are so thick they blot out the sun, therefore preventing the permafrost from melting. Perhaps in the Eocene there were no mosquitoes?

[running_dog_lackey]

“Now... what caused the permafrost to thaw?”

My follow up question: What caused the permafrost to refreeze? according to their theories, there should have been a runaway greenhouse effect that would have left the Earth “warm” forever. How do their models explain all the organic matter now frozen?

[Dixie Yooper]

climate scientist Rob DeConto of the University of Massachusetts Amherst and colleagues elsewhere propose a simple new mechanism to explain the source of carbon that fed a series of extreme warming events about 55 million years ago, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM), and a sequence of similar, smaller warming events afterward.

Bush's fault.

[G Larry]

Silly me....

I thought Warming caused thawing....

How does somebody propose that “thawing” could possibly be a driving mechanism for warming?

Oh...I forgot, these are the same clowns who failed to recognize that Warming causes the increase in CO2 levels, so they’ve grown accustomed to inverting cause and effect.

[rktman]

Now now. Stop bringing logic in to the mix. The bottom line for all of this nonsense is that when Momma Earth decides she’s done with us there isn’t anything we can do about it. You can’t run and you can’t hide so we all might as well have a good time while we can.
Helping keep mankind warm for almost 65 years.

[Red Badger]

What IS a “Doctorate in Social Justice.”?.............

[Norseman]

>>He and colleagues at Yale, the University of Colorado, Penn State, the University of Urbino, Italy, and the University of Sheffield, U.K., designed an accurate model―elusive up to now...< They're essentially admitting that past climate models are inaccurate, but hey, now they've got it right. Right.

[Red Badger]

Way back in the Stone Age when I went to college, we were taught never to make your data fit the problem...........