Is our death from a hydrogen sulfide event inevitable in climate warming? (2005)(psu.edu)
psu.edu
Is our death from a hydrogen sulfide event inevitable in climate warming? (2005)
https://www.psu.edu/news/research/story/global-warming-led-climatic-hydrogen-sulfide-and-permian-extinction
21 comments
Competing species (non-calcifying) then take over...
What you probably don't know yet is that ocean calcifying organisms are the only ones left that still remove CO2 from the atmosphere long term.
Trees take CO2, but when they die, bacteria and fungi oxidize the wood back to CO2. Same for everything else that's greenwashed as "removing CO2". That removal is temporary - only a few years or decades at most.
Without the oceans to trap CO2 into new limestone deposits, we're doomed and we can do absolutely nothing about it.
Trees take CO2, but when they die, bacteria and fungi oxidize the wood back to CO2. Same for everything else that's greenwashed as "removing CO2". That removal is temporary - only a few years or decades at most.
Without the oceans to trap CO2 into new limestone deposits, we're doomed and we can do absolutely nothing about it.
It's not the only mechanism for CO2 removal. There is also a geo cycle. I've forgotten the exact details, but it involves the acidity created by CO2 increasing the speed of rock weathering, and the result sediments being incorporated into the plates, plate tectonics removing the carbon from the upper crust and volcanoes re-introducing it. It's self regulating but very slow, taking millions of years.
Granted, biological removal is much faster, now. But during snowball earth in particular there was so little biological activity the geo cycles dominated CO2 regulation.
Neither of those two mechanisms are relevant right now, as mankind's production of CO2 has swamped both mechanisms. That will stop one way or another of course.
Granted, biological removal is much faster, now. But during snowball earth in particular there was so little biological activity the geo cycles dominated CO2 regulation.
Neither of those two mechanisms are relevant right now, as mankind's production of CO2 has swamped both mechanisms. That will stop one way or another of course.
Will those species replace plankton's role of producing the majority of the Earth's oxygen?
[deleted]
After a few million years, sure.
If will be avoided if we die before, i.e. because the conditions that would eventually lead to that event.
We are changing the environment and the conditions very fast, the Permian process could had taken from hundreds of thousands to millions of years. And CO2 levels because the eruptions that started this were in the order of several thousands, in a process that took also hundreds of thousands of years.
But we are in the road to reach those numbers within decades or very few centuries. If the trend continues, we will die, but by (multiple) other reasons.
We are changing the environment and the conditions very fast, the Permian process could had taken from hundreds of thousands to millions of years. And CO2 levels because the eruptions that started this were in the order of several thousands, in a process that took also hundreds of thousands of years.
But we are in the road to reach those numbers within decades or very few centuries. If the trend continues, we will die, but by (multiple) other reasons.
Original article: "Massive release of hydrogen sulfide to the surface ocean and atmosphere during intervals of oceanic anoxia" - https://www.researchgate.net/publication/253144294_Massive_r...
Abstract: "Simple calculations show that if deep-water H2S concentrations increased beyond a critical threshold during oceanic anoxic intervals of Earth history, the chemocline separating sulfidic deep waters from oxygenated surface waters could have risen abruptly to the ocean surface (a chemocline upward excursion). Atmospheric photochemical modeling indicates that resulting fluxes of H2S to the atmosphere (>2000 times the small modern flux from volcanoes) would likely have led to toxic levels of H2S in the atmosphere. Moreover, the ozone shield would have been destroyed, and methane levels would have risen to >100 ppm. We thus propose (1) chemocline upward excursion as a kill mechanism during the end-Permian, Late Devonian, and Cenomanian Turonian extinctions, and (2) persistently high atmospheric H2S levels as a factor that impeded evolution of eukaryotic life on land during the Proterozoic."
Related: "Impacts of a massive release of methane and hydrogen sulfide on oxygen and ozone during the late Permian mass extinction" - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09218...
Abstract: "Simple calculations show that if deep-water H2S concentrations increased beyond a critical threshold during oceanic anoxic intervals of Earth history, the chemocline separating sulfidic deep waters from oxygenated surface waters could have risen abruptly to the ocean surface (a chemocline upward excursion). Atmospheric photochemical modeling indicates that resulting fluxes of H2S to the atmosphere (>2000 times the small modern flux from volcanoes) would likely have led to toxic levels of H2S in the atmosphere. Moreover, the ozone shield would have been destroyed, and methane levels would have risen to >100 ppm. We thus propose (1) chemocline upward excursion as a kill mechanism during the end-Permian, Late Devonian, and Cenomanian Turonian extinctions, and (2) persistently high atmospheric H2S levels as a factor that impeded evolution of eukaryotic life on land during the Proterozoic."
Related: "Impacts of a massive release of methane and hydrogen sulfide on oxygen and ozone during the late Permian mass extinction" - https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S09218...
> "Today, there are not enough organics in the oceans to go anoxic," says Kump. "But in the Permian,"
The editorialized HN title misrepresents what the article says.
The editorialized HN title misrepresents what the article says.
Have you talked with an oceans specialist recently? Anoxic events are difficult to predict. Not all specialists agree with that Permian isolation.
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/202...
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/202...
That's interesting, but the title still misrepresents the article. Flagged.
As the issue now includes a deepening of recent radical shift potential in equator-to-pole gradient, the chances for this are now measurably distinct.
The question is left open, particularly in the recent data on gulfstream collapse, which may be imminent.
I'm not sure anyone is qualified to claim 100% anoxic events and hydrogen sulfide out gas are limited to the Permian condition.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-025-02793-1
and
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/200...
are in conflict.
The question is left open, particularly in the recent data on gulfstream collapse, which may be imminent.
I'm not sure anyone is qualified to claim 100% anoxic events and hydrogen sulfide out gas are limited to the Permian condition.
https://www.nature.com/articles/s43247-025-02793-1
and
https://agupubs.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1029/200...
are in conflict.
this is one of several "failure modes" connected to climate change that are bieng dissmissed out of hand
and in spite of all the blither blather about humans determining our own future as seperate from anything as trivial as the "weather", we exist as the prime exploiter of what can be summed up as the carbohydrate production of nature, a single number of X millions of tons per anum, which our breathable atmosphere, is a byproduct of.
There is no candidate for the prime exploiter of NPP at this time, since any numeric measure of chemical throughput has us almost tied with marine protists.
Furthermore, the majority of calories consumed by humans are derived from the Haber-Bosch process, which entails exploiting ancient reserves of stored sunlight instead of the present-day supply of sunlight.
Furthermore, the majority of calories consumed by humans are derived from the Haber-Bosch process, which entails exploiting ancient reserves of stored sunlight instead of the present-day supply of sunlight.
Given this proposed series of events, what would be the mechanism s that would return the environment to the conditions we see today?
[deleted]
(2010) should be in the title, presumably?
People wasn't seeing immediate effects because it was hidden in saturating the ocean and now there's no way back in my opinion