New paper debunks claims that fossil fuel use could cause a mass extinction

Climate alarmists have claimed that Earth is on its way to the 6th mass extinction as a result of use of fossil fuels. However, a paper published today in Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology finds that "The total amount of carbon needed [to cause a mass extinction] exceeds the modern fossil fuel reservoir." In other words, even if the highly-exaggerated effects of CO2 on climate were correct, and even if the entire reserve of fossil fuels was burned, a mass extinction from climate change still would not occur.

Initial assessment of the carbon emission rate and climatic consequences during the end-Permian mass extinction

• Ying Cui^a, , , , 
• Lee R. Kump^a, 
• Andy Ridgwell^b

• ^a Department of Geosciences and Earth System Science Center, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA 16802, United States
• ^b School of Geographical Sciences, University of Bristol, University Road, Bristol BS8 1SS, UK

Highlights

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We model the carbon isotope record of the Permian-Triassic event in a novel way.

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The result is a continuous record of carbon addition and extraction.

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The peak rate of carbon addition is smaller than the present fossil fuel burning rate.

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The total amount of carbon needed exceeds the modern fossil fuel reservoir.

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Determining the source of carbon needs better constraints on the ocean temperature.

Abstract

Numerous lines of geochemical and stable isotopic evidence indicate that the end-Permian mass extinction was accompanied by abrupt climate change induced by CO₂ addition. Catastrophic end-Permian Siberian volcanism may have released a large amount of CO₂ into the atmosphere and pushed the Earth's system beyond a critical threshold, causing the mass extinction. However, the injection rate, total amount and source of CO₂ are largely unknown. We conducted a suite of simulations using the recently published carbon isotope records and U–Pb ages from Meishan section in Zhejiang province, China. An Earth System Model of Intermediate Complexity (cGENIE; http://www.genie.ac.uk) was used to extract the pattern of CO₂ release needed to replicate the observed carbon isotope excursion across the Permian-Triassic boundary. This analysis leads us to suggest that the source of CO₂ must have been significantly heavier than typical biogenic or thermogenic methane to explain the significant warming that occurred during and after the extinction event. Nevertheless, as with the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum, end-Permian rates of CO₂ addition were likely small compared with modern fossil-fuel burning, but considerably more protracted, such that the likely total CO₂ emitted significantly exceeded the modern fossil-fuel reserves. Peak emission rates corresponded to the onset of the maximum extinction interval, consistent with carbon cycle disruption, including volcanogenic CO₂-induced warming (and perhaps ocean acidification), as a trigger for the end-Permian mass extinction.