Tuesday 10 November 2020

"Climate Change May Have Driven Ancient Human Species to Extinction"

From Science Alert:

Researchers have also hypothesized that climate change could have played a role in the extinction of Homo species. In a new study, published in the journal One Earth, a multidisciplinary team of scientists from Italy, the United Kingdom, and Brazil make the case that this factor was the major driver in the extinction of other hominins.

The authors believe the findings could serve as a warning as humanity faces human-made climate change today. "Even the brain powerhouse in the animal kingdom, [the Homo genus], cannot survive climate change when it gets too extreme," says paleontologist Pasquale Raia, of the University of Naples Federico II, one of the study's authors. "People should mind that, given the current mayhem we are causing."


Indeed, so have earlier periods of gradual warming led to mass extinctions..?

For three of the five extinct species - H. erectus, H. heidelbergensis, and H. neanderthalensis - a sudden, strong change in climate occurred on the planet just before these species died out. Climes became colder for all three, drier for H. heildelbergensis and Neanderthals, and wetter for H. erectus. According to Raia, the change in temperature was roughly 4 to 5 degrees Celsius, on yearly averages.

I'll take that as a 'no'. When they say "change in temperatures" they must mean "fall in temperatures" (Ice Ages are indisputably bad for humanity). If extinctions had coincided with increases, you can be sure they would have mentioned it.

9 comments:

Penseivat said...

The climate on this planet is changing all the time, irrespective of what humans do. Cows fart methane, which affects greenhouse gases. Volcanoes continue to spout their contents into the air and will continue to do so, affecting climate change, even if every person on the planet eats only mung beans and lives in holes in the ground. Some years ago, their was a huge volcanic eruption (in Iceland, I think) which caused half the worlds airlines to either change their routes or stop flying altogether. Some expert reckoned that that volcano sent out more air pollution that man had done in the previous 1o years. We can eat as many mung beans as we wish, but if volcanoes keep erupting we are simply peeing into the wind.
Before anyone refutes this, can they tell me what ended the last ice age? I doubt that it was the nasty neanderthals over using deisel engines.

johnd2008 said...

I would not be at all surprised if climate change killed off some early man.That is what evolution is all about.Adapting to the prevailing circumstances. By the way,if it does get really cold I assume that some of the Inuit people may survive ,they seem to have done it before.

mombers said...

Any feedback from the scientific community on these analyses of yours? I've not read any of your climate change posts in details but would be interesting to see if you're onto something or not. I'm not convinced that the thousands of expert scientists have missed what you describe as fairly simple evidence against anthropogenic climate change. Or is it a massive, global conspiracy?

Mark Wadsworth said...

P "The climate on this planet is changing all the time, irrespective of what humans do. "

Agreed.

JD, if we had another Ice Age, even the Inuits would struggle.

M, the gravito-thermal effect is largely dismissed as a crackpot theory by Warmenists.

The effect explains why *surface* temperatures are 33K warmer than you'd expect. Of course, it does NOT explain short and long term changes, because the effect is a static thing. Nobody can explain the long term changes for sure and anybody who claims to be able to is a charlatan. It is far to complicated.

What riles me is that the Warmenists claim that the entire 33K is due to greenhouse gases (clearly not true) and then extrapolate that to say that more greenhouse gases leads to warmer temperatures. That in itself might well be true, in the same way as volcano dust clearly reduces temperatures, but I suspect the effect is very marginal and the negative feedbacks largely smooth it all out.

mombers said...

@MW so a massive global conspiracy I take it then?

Mark Wadsworth said...

M, is there a 'massive global conspiracy' against LVT or UBI or legalising cannabis or PR? I put Alarmism in the same general category.

The upsetting thing is that all this CO2 tomfoolery distracts us from real pollution issues (CFCs, car exhausts in cities, oil spills, plastic in oceans, lead pipes, it's a long list).

Bayard said...

M, yes, to the extent that religion is a massive global conspiracy. AGW has many of the aspects of a religion and has sprung up at the same time as belief in conventional religions was falling.

mombers said...

@MW/B the theories around LVT, UBI, legalising drugs and PR are not scientific in the same way as studying nature is. They are based on human behaviour (social science) as opposed to the behaviour of matter and energy. In addition, there is pretty widespread agreement on tax incidence and the minimal damage that LVT causes as opposed to VAT, NI etc, it's just a huge political problem getting it implemented.

There a thousands of very talented scientists working on studying the climate, and I just don't buy that they are all in on a conspiracy to fabricate evidence. The TLDR; of a lot of your posts on this I think is that atmospheric composition has no effect on surface temperatures. If this is true it's a truly massive conspiracy as how on earth could such an obvious thing be missed or covered up?

Mark Wadsworth said...

M, I dunno. If people genuinely believe something and look for evidence for it, they will find that evidence. Then they present that evidence. "Conspiracy" suggests they don't believe in what they are saying. See also Bayard's explanation.

Seeing as MMGW was first postulated in the 19th century, you'd think they'd have managed to explain it properly by now. But every time you challenge something they say "Ah, of course that particular bit is not actually true, that is just a simplification for the general public. Allow us to peel back another layer and give you the REAL explanation..." and then you challenge that and so on ad infinitum.