Experts suggest current Global Warming trends could trigger Mass Human Extinction from a sudden Methane Cascade

by Jenn Jones

The destruction of much of humanity on Earth could be comparable to the devastation of the inhabitants of Pompeii centuries ago.

Billions of people could perish on Earth from suffication, if human beings continue allow a prospective cascade reaction to take place in the atmosphere as a result of our planet reaching am environmental breaking point. Earth is being pushed to the breaking point by a greed-driven elite guided by a demonic consciouness which does not treat Earth as their home, as other human beings.

In his book, When Life Nearly Died: The Greatest Mass Extinction of All Time (London: Thames and Hudson, 2003), Michael J. Benton describes a mass extinction at the end of the Permian period, about 250 million years ago, when at least 90 percent of life on Earth died. The extinction probably was initiated by massive volcanic eruptions in Siberia. According to present theories, the eruptions injected massive amounts of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, causing a number of biotic feedbacks that accelerated global warming of about 6 degrees Celsius.

In a chapter titled "What Caused the Biggest Catastrophe of all Time?" Benton sketches how the warming (which was accompanied by anoxia) may have fed upon itself: "The end-Permian runaway greenhouse may have been simple. Release of carbon dioxide from the eruption of the Siberian Traps [volcanoes] led to a rise in global temperatures of 6 degrees Celsius or so. Cool polar regions became warm and frozen tundra became unfrozen. The melting might have penetrated to the frozen gas hydrate reservoirs located around the polar oceans, and massive volumes of methane may have burst to the surface of the oceans in huge bubbles.

This further input of carbon into the atmosphere caused more warming, which could have melted further gas hydrate reservoirs. So the process went on, running faster and faster. The natural systems that normally reduce carbon dioxide levels could not operate, and eventually the system spiraled out of control, with the biggest crash in the history of life."

The oxygen-starved aftermath of this immense global belch of methane left land animals gasping for breath and caused the Earth’s largest mass extinction, suggests new research. Greg Retallack, an expert in ancient soils at the University of Oregon, has speculated that the same methane "belch" was of such a magnitude that it caused mass extinction via oxygen starvation of land animals. Bob Berner of Yale University has calculated that a cascade of effects on wetlands and coral reefs may have reduced oxygen levels in the atmosphere from 35 percent to just 12 percent over 20,000 years. Marine life also may have suffocated in the oxygen-poor water.

Events 250 million years ago are of more than academic interest today because the 6 degrees Celsius that Benton estimates triggered these events is roughly the same temperature rise forecast for the Earth by the IPCC by the end of this century.

In Abrupt Climate Change (2002), Richard B. Alley wrote that climate may change rapidly (as much as 16 degrees Celsius within a decade or two) "when gradual causes push the Earth system across a threshold. Just as the slowly increasing pressure of a finger eventually flips a switch and turns on a light...." Half the North Atlantic warming since the last ice age was achieved, writes Alley, within one decade. The temperature record for Greenland, according to Alley’s research, more resembles a jagged row of very sharp teeth than a gradual passage from one epoch to another. According to Alley: "Model projections of global warming find increased global precipitation, increased variability in precipitation, and summertime drying in many continental interiors, including "grain belt" regions. Such changes might produce more floods and more droughts." Human emissions of greenhouse gases may provide enough of a change to trigger such a rapid change.

Bruce E. Johansen who is a writer for Z magazine documents that by 2000, the hydrological cycle seemed to be changing more quickly than temperatures. Warmer air holds more moisture, making rain (and sometimes snow) more intense. Warmer air also increases evaporation, paradoxically intensifying drought at the same time. With sustained warming, usually wet places generally seem to be receiving more rain than before; dry places often receive less rain and become subject to more persistent drought. In many places, drought or deluge is becoming the weather regime du jour. Atmospheric moisture increases more rapidly than temperature; over the United States and Europe, atmospheric moisture increased 10 to 20 percent from 1980 to 2000. "That’s why you see the impact of global warming mostly in intense storms and flooding like we have seen in Europe," Kevin Trenberth, a scientist with National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) told London’s Financial Times.

As if on cue to support climate models, the summer of 2002 featured a number of climatic extremes, especially regarding precipitation. Excessive rain deluged Europe and Asia, swamping cities and villages and killing at least 2,000 people, while drought and heat scorched the United States’ west and eastern cities. Climate skeptics argued that weather is always variable, but other observers noted that extremes seemed to be more frequent than before. A year later, following episodic floods during the summer of 2002, Europe experienced some of it highest (and longest-sustained) temperatures in recorded history, causing (by various estimates) between 19,000 and 35,000 excess deaths. As much as 80 percent of the grain crop died in eastern Germany, site of some of 2002’s worst floods.

"In a hotter climate, your chances of being caught with either too much or too little are higher," said Dr. John M. Wallace, a professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Washington. Government scientists have measured a rise in downpour-style storms in the United States during the last century. "Over the past 50 years, said Wallace, winter precipitation in the Sierra Nevada has been falling more and more in the form of rain, increasing flood risks, instead of as snow, which supplies farmers and taps alike as it melts in the spring."

The World Water Council report compiled statistics indicating that, for example, between 1971 and 1995 floods affected more than 1.5 billion people worldwide, or 100 million people a year. An estimated 318,000 were killed and more than 18 million left homeless. The economic costs of these disasters rose to an estimated $300 billion in the 1990s from about $35 billion in the 1960s. Global warming is causing changes in weather patterns as growing populations migrate to vulnerable areas, increasing costs of individual weather events, said William Cosgrove, vice president of the World Water Council. Scientists cited by the World Water Council expect that climate changes during the 21st century will lead to shorter and more intense rainy seasons in some areas, as well as longer, more intense droughts in others, endangering some crops and species and causing a drop in global food production.

Rising carbon dioxide levels in the oceans could threaten the health of many marine organisms, beginning with the plankton at the base of the food chain. "If we continue down the path we are going, we will produce changes greater than any experienced in the past 300 million years — with the possible exception of rare, extreme events such as comet impacts," Caldeira, of the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, warned. Since carbon dioxide levels began to be measured on a systemic basis worldwide in 1958, its concentration in the atmosphere has risen 17 percent.

Until now, some climate experts have asserted that the oceans would help to control the rise in carbon dioxide by acting as a filter. However, Caldeira and Michael Wickett said that carbon dioxide that is removed from the atmosphere enters the oceans as carbonic acid, gradually altering the acidity of ocean water. According to their studies, the change over the last century already matches the magnitude of the change that occurred in the entire 10,000 years preceding the industrial age. Caldeira pointed to acid rain from industrial emissions as a possible precursor of changes in the oceans. "Most ocean life resides near the surface, where the greatest change would be expected to come, but deep ocean life may prove to be even more sensitive to changes," Caldeira said.

Marine plankton and other organisms whose skeletons or shells contain calcium carbonate, which is dissolved by acid solutions, may be particularly vulnerable. Coral reefs — already suffering from pollution, rising ocean temperatures, and other stresses — are comprised almost entirely of calcium carbonate. "It’s difficult to predict what will happen because we haven’t really studied the range of impacts," Caldeira said. "But we can say that if we continue business as usual, we are going to see some significant changes in the acidity of the world’s oceans."

Along the same line, warming seas also are devastating plankton, eroding the ocean’s food chain. Global warming is contributing to an "ecological meltdown," with devastating implications for fisheries and wildlife. The "meltdown" begins at the base of the food chain, as increasing sea temperatures kill plankton. Fish stocks and sea-bird populations are declining as well.

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