To the greatest mass extinction on Earth, known as a great Permic extinction that occurred about 252 million years ago, The collapse of tropical forests could contribute. This stems from the conclusions of the study published on Wednesday in Nature Communications, wrote CNN.
A total of five mass extinctions have occurred in the Earth’s history. The largest of them, a quarter of a billion years ago, exterminated approximately 90 percent of their lives on Earth and meant the end of the geological era of Perm. At that time, the planet warmed up to such a temperature that it became virtually uninhabitable and in this state remained for another five million years.
Scientists have been trying to explain these processes for a long time. For example, they attribute responsibility to a period of volcanic activity in the area known as Siberian traps, in which a huge amount of carbon and other gases that heat the planet has been released into the atmosphere, causing intense global warming. A huge amount of marine and terrestrial plants and animals died, ecosystems collapsed and oceans were acidified.
However less clear remains why then It was so hot and why the so -called. The “super -glass” conditions persisted so long even after the end of volcanic activity. Some theories focus on the ocean and the idea that extreme heat has been destroyed by plankton absorbing carbon or changed the chemical composition of the ocean by becoming less effective in depositing carbon.
A team of international researchers from the University of Leeds, England and the University of China Geovied now claims that Using a huge number of fossils, he found out why – and all of them are related to tropical forests, which are located in areas around the equator and play an important role in capturing carbon. To verify their theory, they used the archive of fossil data in China, which for decades collected three generations of Chinese geologists.
The great Perm Extract is unique, “Because it’s the only event in which all the plants died out,” The author of the study and professor of the evolution of the Earth’s system at the University of Leedsi Benjamin Mills said.
By analyzing fossils and rock formations, experts have received information on climatic conditions in the past. This allowed them to reconstruct the maps of plants and trees growing in individual parts of the planet before, during and after extinction. According to Mills, no one has ever created such maps.
The results confirmed their hypothesis and showed that the loss of vegetation during mass extinction significantly reduced the planet’s ability to store carbon. As a result of this remained in the atmosphere high amounts of carbonwhose buildup has long been inflected as the cause of the planet warming.
Forests play a key role in a chemical process called silicate weathering, which is considered a decisive way of removing carbon from the atmosphere. The roots of trees and plants help this process by smashing rocks and allowing fresh water and air access. Forest death leads to a change in the “carbon cycle”, Mills said when he spoke of the way carbon is moving on the ground between the atmosphere, mainland, oceans and living organisms.
According to Professor Paleontology, a study at Michael Benton University, who did not participate in it, shows that “the absence of forests actually affects regular cycles of oxygen and carbon and suppresses carbon burying, thus remaining high levels of carbon dioxide over a longer period”.
Research in his words emphasizes the existence of a “threshold effect”in which forest loss becomes irreversible on an ecological time scale. This is also the key conclusion of research. According to CNN, it shows what can happen if rapid global warming causes the collapse of rainforests on Earth in the future, which scientists are very worried about.
Even if people have completely stopped draining into the atmosphere that warms the planet, the ground may not cool down – in fact, warming could accelerateMills pointed out. But there is a fraction of hope, namely that the rainforests that currently cover tropical areas may be more resistant to high temperatures than the forests that existed before a large extinction. Scientists continue to deal with this issue. “This study is still a warning. There is a break point. If you get the tropical forests too warming, we have very good records of what happens. And it’s very bad,” added.
