End of the World Won’t Start Today, But Next Extinction Could Happen in 2100, Says Scientist Kate Sheridan - Newsweek
go to original September 23, 2017

Update: Doomsday Conspiracy Theory: David Meade Reschedules Apocalypse for October After World Didn't End (Newsweek)

A new analysis of previous mass extinctions adds more support to the idea that there will be another - soon.

Daniel Rothman, a geophysict at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, compiled a database of information about previous mass extinctions and major environmental changes. After analyzing the data, he boiled it down to a (deceptively) simple equation and a number: the amount of carbon that would be required - if added over a short period of time - to throw the carbon cycle out of whack.

That threshold is about 310 gigatons of extra carbon in the oceans. Earth will likely hit that critical amount by 2100, according to predictions based on Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change models.

“Every time there has been a mass extinction in the geologic record, we know there has also been a serious disruption in the carbon cycle,” Rothman told Newsweek, though not every carbon cycle disruption leads to a mass extinction. The carbon cycle is a collection of processes that move the element between Earth's atmosphere - where it is associated with greenhouse gases - and its soil and oceans. Human influence on this cycle is a key issue behind climate change.

The paper tries to answer a simple question, Rothman said: what separates the carbon cycle disruptions that lead to mass extinctions from those that don’t? While there may be a critical, threshold amount when carbon is added over a short period of time, the amount is less important than the rate at which it’s added. In both cases, the threshold is the point at which the extra carbon would overwhelm an ecosystem’s ability to adapt.

Read the rest at Newsweek

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