“This study is really the final nail in the coffin for what caused the Permian–Triassic mass extinction,” said Sperling, the study’s senior author and an associate professor of Earth and planetary sciences in the Stanford Doerr School of Sustainability. “The biggest mass extinction of all time started from a world that is very similar to today in having a relatively cool, relatively well-oxygenated ocean, and then there was a giant injection of carbon dioxide into the Earth system. Understanding how Earth and Earth’s biota responded back then could inform us of what’s to come.”

[–] psud@aussie.zone 36 points 1 day ago (2 children)

“The bad news is, we are on track for Permian-Triassic levels of warming in worst-case scenario projections,” said Sperling. Temperatures increased 8-12 degrees Celsius over thousands of years to cause the Great Dying, and today, over just 100-200 years, temperatures are projected to be 1.5-4 degrees Celsius warmer than preindustrial times by 2100. “But the good news is, we’re still at the point where we can change things and do something about it.”

8° over thousands of years killed almost everything in the ocean. 6 degrees in a couple of hundred is likely on our current trajectory. That doesn't give much time for evolutionary fixes for the ocean animals

[–] eleitl@lemmy.zip 3 points 11 hours ago (2 children)

Yeah. The good news is pure hopium.

[–] psud@aussie.zone 2 points 10 hours ago

I can't see us throttling the fossil fuel companies, and I'm not at all hopeful of any carbon drawdown technology more complex than trees will happen, and I don't think we can plant anywhere near enough trees in places they can grow, and replant those that are burnt down

I think Kim Stanley Robinson has it right in his sci fi that all the coastal cities are screwed in a hundred years or so and presuming we don't fuck the biosphere in general enough to wipe out civilisation we'll be dredging sand just offshore from the old beaches to build new ones

I don't live in the UK or Europe but I wonder if the land rise (the rebound from the last glaciation) can keep up with sea level for long. The 10m rise from the west Antarctic ice sheet failing would have certainly outrun it, being described as like a tide that keeps coming in (look up 10m in a flood map to see how bad that would be for an overnight change!) but that's off the table. The Antarctic isn't melting like the Arctic. At least not yet.

I almost hope for life extension so I can see the disaster, but it'll suck.

[–] StupidBrotherInLaw@lemmy.world 2 points 11 hours ago

It's possible, just not probable because the people actually running the world don't give a fuck about the rest of us.

[–] foenkyfjutschah@programming.dev 4 points 1 day ago

given the further emissions and feedback loops, i'd expect +8°C around the end of the next century.