Methane Producing Dinosaurs May Have Changed Climate 264
Hugh Pickens writes "The Telegraph reports that huge plant-eating dinosaurs called sauropods may have produced enough greenhouse gas by breaking wind to alter the Earth's climate. Scientists believe that, just as in cows, methane-producing bacteria aided the digestion of sauropods by fermenting their plant food. 'A simple mathematical model suggests that the microbes living in sauropod dinosaurs may have produced enough methane to have an important effect on the Mesozoic climate,' says study leader Dr Dave Wilkinson. 'Indeed, our calculations suggest that these dinosaurs could have produced more methane than all modern sources — both natural and man-made — put together.' The key factor is the total mass of the animals which included some of the largest animals to walk the Earth, such as Diplodocus, which measured 150 feet and weighed up to 45 tons. Medium-sized sauropods weighed about 20 tons and lived in herds of up to a few tens of individuals per square kilometer so global methane emissions from the animals would have amounted to around 472 million tons per year, the scientists calculated. Sauropods alone may have been responsible for an atmospheric methane concentration of one to two parts per million (ppm), say the scientists and studies have suggested that the Earth was up to 10C (18F) warmer in the Mesozoic Era. ''The Mesozoic trend to sauropod gigantism led to the evolution of immense microbial vats unequaled in modern land animals. Methane was probably important in Mesozoic greenhouse warming. Our simple proof-of-concept model suggests greenhouse warming by sauropod megaherbivores could have been significant in sustaining warm climates.'"
Re:Fucking idiots (Score:2, Informative)
Careful citizen. At the most-recent Warming Conference a scientist proposed labeling climate-deniers as "mentally ill" and sending them to hospitals to be cured of this deficiency. She got unanamious applause.
Link to the manuscript at Current Biology (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Misconstrued Article (Score:5, Informative)
Legitimate question: 65 million years ago, were trees/plants as efficient at converting carbon dioxide to Oxygen? I assume trees have evolved since then to become better at what they do.
Once you had 'trees' you have modern photosynthesis. There might have been some qualitative differences with more surface area, etc, but the higher temps and just plain more organic matter would have likely trumped any later 'efficiencies'. Basically, once photosynthesis jumped out of the cyanobacteria (about 3+ billion years ago), the molecular mechanism has been highly conserved.
Where is the context? (Score:4, Informative)
I always love to look up the context for quotes. So tell me...where did this quote come from? When did the word "treated" get "added" in? Obviously, the word "treated" is the source of all the consternation, with folks jumping to believe that the word implies sending skeptics away to hospitals (as cpu6502 alleges). Where is the proper context, so that we may determine what capacity "treated" was being used in?
Let's start with the Register. (lol, half a step above the Daily Mail!)
"Resistance at individual and societal levels must be recognized and treated" [theregister.co.uk]
Which links to the university press release
"Resistance at individual and societal levels must be recognized before real action can be taken to effectively address threats facing the planet from human-caused contributions to climate change." [uoregon.edu]
Which links to this presentation.
"What social factors drive ongoing environmental degradation? Existing scientific conversations have generally failed to include psychological understanding of individual behavior, or sociological insights regarding culture and social organization. This session highlights key psychological and sociological concepts essential to understanding social inaction. We integrate research on relational trust, social normative beliefs and cultural and political-economic constraints on pro-environmental action." [planetunde...re2012.net]
I ctrl-f'd for "treat" but found nothing except the original Register quote. I also ctrl-f'd for "hospital" and found nothing. And the original Register "quote" wasn't even quoting her.