How fast is the climate recovering after high intensity climate change? German researchers found the answer
To answer this question, researchers at the University of Mainz (JGU) in Germany traveled through time. After studying the most intense climate change on the planet, they established the period Earth spacecraft needed to regain climate stability.
According to research carried out at the University of Mainz, it took between 20,000 and 50,000 years for the Earth’s climate to stabilize after the rise in global temperatures of between five and eight degrees Celsius that took place 56 million years ago.
Climate change is causing temperatures to rise and also increasing the likelihood of storms, torrential rain and flooding: the recent flood catastrophe in Germany’s Ahr Valley is just one example of this. What we should ask ourselves about this is how quickly the climate can recover from the warming caused by the increase in carbon dioxide in the atmosphere.
A trip back in time to Earth
The teacher Philip Pogge von Strandmann, An Earth science expert at Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz (JGU), he began investigating how the planet is recovering after global temperatures rise by between five and eight degrees Celsius. That’s what happened 56 million years ago, the fastest natural warming period that affected our climate, known as Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM). It was not the only one that occurred on earth, one of them preceded the extinction of the dinosaurs, but it was the most intense.
Most likely, the climate’s heat was caused by a volcanic eruption that released huge amounts of carbon dioxide or CO2 into the atmosphere. We know that the higher the temperature, the faster the rock resists and, moreover, if there is a lot of CO2 in the atmosphere, part of it reacts with water, forming carbonic acid, the same acid that promotes and accelerates the weathering process. .
Due to the weathering process, this atmospheric carbon will eventually reach the seas via rivers, where it binds to CO2 in the form of carbonate and forms a persistent reservoir of carbon dioxide in the ocean.
‘Our theory was that if the rock wears out faster due to rising temperatures, it also helps convert a large amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere into insoluble carbonate in seawater, which means that in the long term, CO2 levels would eventually fall again and the climate would eventually recover,” explains Pogge von Strandmann. This effect may have contributed to keeping Earth’s climate reasonably stable for billions of years and may even have prevented the total extinction of all life on the planet.
how time stabilized
Professor Philip Pogge von Strandmann and his team decided to analyze the weathering processes that occurred during the warming event 56 million years ago. His results indicate that the theory may be correct. “The weathering of rocks at that time increased by 50% as a result of global warming; erosion – the physical part of weathering – has tripled. Another consequence of the increase in temperature was that evaporation, rainfall and storms also increased, causing further erosion. As a result of this increased wear of the rocks, the climate stabilized, but it took between 20,000 and 50,000 years to occur”, warns Pogge von Strandmanno.
How did researchers reach these conclusions? After all, these weathering processes took place 56 million years ago. The answer lies in the rocks themselves.
When rocks dissolve, they release lithium – the lithium-6 and lithium-7 isotopes, to be exact – which escapes into the surrounding water. The proportion of lithium-6 and lithium-7 isotopes present in water is determined by the type of weathering, that is, by the amount of erosion produced by weathering.
The researchers were able to use the data obtained to draw conclusions about weathering and climate from 56 million years ago.
Clay, found at the bottom of the sea, primarily stores lithium-6, while lithium-7 remains in water. The research team conducted two types of scientific research: They examined marine carbonates that formed 56 million years ago, a type of rock that absorbs chemicals from water. They also investigated clay minerals from Denmark and Svalbard, which also formed during this period, looking at the relative proportions of lithium isotopes in these two different types of minerals. The researchers were able to use the data obtained to draw conclusions about weathering and climate from 56 million years ago. Their results were published in the journal Science Advances.