The Issue with Carbon Dioxide as the Primary Driver of Global Warming.
By: Walter Fiori, 27 March, 2021
1.0
Introduction
The current scientific thinking is that global warming is driven by the emissions of carbon dioxide (CO2). CO2 is believed to have the ability to capture and radiate heat back to the earth’s surface in a concept called “radiative forcing”. Emissions of CO2 fuelling the growth in the average global temperature (AGT) are tied to the consumption of fossil fuels for human energy needs.
The annual residual of the emissions of CO2 are diligently measured in terms of its atmospheric concentration and compared to the measured annual increases in the AGT anomaly. Comparing the two measures shows a distinct correlation between them.
The observed correlation between the two measures enables one measure to be determined if the other is known. Projected consumption of fossil fuels has enabled the determination of future increases in the AGT based on models centred about the theory that the emissions of CO2 from the consumption of fossil fuels is driving global warming. The determinations from the projections derived from the models suggest significant increases in the AGT with serious consequence to humanity unless the volume of CO2 emissions is reduced considerably.
Strategies to mitigate the rising of the AGT are contemplated based on the elimination of fossil fuel consumption and applying replacement technologies, such as renewable energy production, electric vehicles, alternative “clean” energy generation systems, such as hydrogen and advanced nuclear power generators, and carbon removal solutions. All are seen in an optimistic light at overcoming the current rate of warming and its advancement into precipitous climate change while maintaining the system of civilisation and the economic model based on projected population growth and current life style benefits.
1.1 Preliminary discussion
Plant and animal life has existed for at least 650 million years. CO2, water and energy from the sun are consumed by plants (in the process of photosynthesis) to create the sugars they depend on for their growth. Plants are the food source animals depend on for their growth. Herbivorous animals eat plants and carnivorous animals eat herbivores. All life on earth is made up of the substances plants create from CO2, water and the energy from the sun.
Plants require a minimum level of sunlight to survive. Sunlight less than the minimum required by particular plants will cause the plants to die. If all plants die all the animals on the earth die with them.
The plants most demanding of sunlight today require exposure to full sunlight for six or more hours per day R01. Plant adaptation to these sunlight conditions must have been accompanied by sunlight periods that repeated annually for tens to hundreds of millions of years. It suggests that the sun’s output irradiation must have been within the tolerance that enabled
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plants demanding of constant sunlight to evolve to cope with these conditions throughout this time. It is therefore logical to assume that the sun’s irradiation has been maintained within a tolerance that is suitable for the range of plant life that evolved into the different habitats, and into what exists today, for at least the last 650 million years. It is also logical to assume that if the sun’s irradiation is outside of the plants tolerance levels it will result in the death of the plants and of the animals that are dependent on the plants for their survival.
2.0 AGT trend turn points of the late-Proterozoic and the Phanerozoic
Surveying the last 610 million has shown that the earth has been subjected to a varying AGT that peaks at a high AGT and plummets to a condition that heralds an ice age. The sinusoidal nature of the AGT graph introduces the idea of AGT trend turn points.
Turn points in the AGT graph are when a trend, either warming or cooling, changes direction. In one cycle of the 150MY Solar Cycle, as described in the article, Variability of the Total Solar Irradiance (TSI), Fiori, W., 2021 the cycle:
Takes the AGT from a bottom temperature, to a peak temperature and back to a bottom temperature.
At each high and low turn point the trend the AGT pursued rapidly changes to a trend that proceeds in the opposite direction.
There are a minimum of two (2) trend changes in any one cycle.
At each turn point:
o The total energy the earth receives from the sun during the day dissipates to the universe at night.
o The TSI is equal to 1361W/m².
The following essay refers to the changes in the AGT trend in terms of °C/MYs. The trends are representative of a change in the TSI. The °C trend value can be converted to a W/m² value by the formula: 1°C change in the AGT trend = 4.54W/m² in the TSI.
The Paleomap website graph R02 was modified as per Figure 1 to show the AGT trend turn
points of the last 610 million years (MYs).
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Highlighted on the graph are three (3) particular AGT trend turn points that occurred at the time of the Karoo Ice Age, about 329 to 269 million years ago (MYA). These are discussed later.
There were a further 19 AGT trend turn points noted on the graph, also dotted in red, when AGT trends changed abruptly and proceeded in the opposite direction. In total, Figure 1 shows that 22 AGT trend turn points occurred in the 610MYs of the late Proterozoic and the Phanerozoic.
A portion of the Palaeozoic was chosen to investigate this aspect further. The reasoning for choosing a distant time was that if the properties of carbon dioxide are as they are expressed to be today, then the properties should be seen to act in the same manner then.
The method chosen was to graph the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide (ACCO2) to the linear AGT graph reconstructed from the extracted data from the Paleomap Project website, Average Global Temperature graph, also described in the abovementioned article, Variability of the Total Solar Irradiance.
The diagram of the ACCO2 published by Nasif Nahle, 2007, Cycles of Global Change R03 , was chosen as the source to extract the values of the ACCO2 from.
Changes in the direction of cooling and warming trends appear to be common during the Phanerozoic and the addition of the ACCO2 data to the AGT graph should show the influence the ACCO2 had on the AGT.
The theory that “CO2 is the primary driver of global warming” is mooted as a physical law that must have applied since the creation of the earth. To validate the theory that CO2 is the driver of global warming the composite graph of the AGT and ACCO2 must show that the ACCO2 is:
1. The principle cause of global warming.
2. The cause that creates peak times of excessive heat and ice ages.
3. Able to almost spontaneously become of an intensity to cause a rapid change in the direction of a progressing AGT trend.
4. Able to spasmodically and almost spontaneously increase and decrease during a 150MY Solar Cycle to cause the random AGT trend changes detected within the cycle.
And that:
1. The ACCO2 fluctuates rapidly and significantly to cause the turn point of a 150 million year (MY) Solar Cycle at both the peak and bottom AGT.
2. The theory of CO2 as the driver of global warming and cooling through radiative forcing applied throughout the last 610 million years.
3.0 Lead-up events to the Karoo Ice Age
The ACCO2, from the source noted, representing five (5) periods of the Palaeozoic was added to the linear AGT time graph.
Added to the graph are identification of the ice ages with approximate timings, concentration variations in the ACCO2 and the timing of the evolution and distribution of plants on land meant for reference.
For the purpose of this discussion, the possible error in the AGT and the ACCO2 is less important than the visualisation of the trends and movements of the values in the dataset that created the curves presented on the graph.
It’s well understood that the points in each dataset have been derived by proxy methods that have been meticulously and expertly evaluated and assessed by natural mineral transitions, absorption of isotopic variants of gases and various layered depositions by many experts in these matters; each of which may have arrived at results by statistical method that vary from one another although they maintain the trend.
The datasets do not provide exacting point values for either the AGT or the ACCO2 conditions at any one point of time as no one has measured them at the time they happened.
All references in this essay to exacting values that these trend lines present, as shown on Figure 2 or referred to in the text of this article, are intended to be used only to indicate a possible situation or outcome that is firmly related to the trend. They are a possible reference to the values for the AGT and the ACCO2 that can be used in a cross-reference to the opportunity for the environment to have conditions suitable for life under the AGT and ACCO2 point values determined.
3.1 Tectonic activity and life
An important aspect of Figure 2 is that it shows the transitions of the datasets in relation to tectonic activity and life. The shaded areas below the ACCO2 data line represent different stages of plant evolution and their distribution about the land.
The Cambrian evolution of aquatic plant life had already caused a reduction in the ACCO2 that continued into the Ordovician up to the beginning of the land transformation that started about 480MYA. This was a few million years before the evolution and distribution of land plants about available wetland habitats began.
About 470MYA plants began to occupy the shorelines of the land. The first land plants did not have a vascular water transport system and were dependent on having their feet constantly wet. They had no predators on land and “quickly” distributed themselves about the world where suitable wetland habitat existed. Their biomass increased as individuals were born, grew and distributed themselves about the available habitats.
During the time highlighted as area 1 in Figure 2 subduction forces struck the then continents of Laurentia and Baltica. The tectonic forces persisted for about 50MYs of the late Ordovician and early Silurian periods causing Laurentia to shrink and Baltica to increase in 4
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surface area. The forces caused coastlines and shallow water areas either to submerge to greater depths or to elevate above a constant high water line.
The elevation changes would have impacted the habitats of the aquatic plants and the newly evolved land plant life - plants which had to be wholly or partly submerged. It would have impeded their opportunity for survival and, as the waterlines and wetlands changed to dry land or deeper water, caused their extinction.
At the same time, an AGT trend turn point began a cooling trend that took the AGT to the low of the Andean-Saharan Ice Age. Now plant life had another environmental condition to contend with that coincided with the tectonic activity that was making changes to their habitats.
In a time of 22MYs the AGT reduced by 12.2°C while the ACCO2 increased from 2300 to about 2450 ppmv as shown in Figure 3.
The AGT’s decline was at an average rate of -0.55°C/MYs as it moved from a high of 26.2°C to the 14°C low point of the Andean-Saharan Ice Age. The AGT trend proceeded at a rate of1.45°C/MYs during the last 4MYs before reaching the bottom AGT of the Ice Age.
Habitats with climates conducive to the aquatic and semiaquatic life that inhabited them changed significantly and several were destroyed. Life struggled to adapt despite the million year timeframes.
The combination of the two (2) elements was very detrimental to the living biomass of the time. Biomass was being steadily lost. Bacterial and other forms of decomposition returned the constituent parts of the biomass to earth and atmosphere and the ACCO2 began to rise.
hung on during these difficult times as the AGT trend ranged between 1 and 0.8°C/MYs and, after a few million years of struggle with both the changes in land mass and rate of increase in the AGT, life succumbed to the combination of the two (2). A mass extinction event at the boundary of the Ordovician and Silurian Periods took much of the life of that time.
The decline in the AGT, the increase in the ACCO2, the coming and going of an Ice Age and the Mass Extinction Event all happened while the ACCO2 was more than 6 times what it is today. There were no rapid sporadic reductions or increases in the CO2 that could have plunged the earth into an Ice Age or caused the AGT trends to turn from cooling to warming.
In the early Silurian the tectonic activity terminated, the concentration of CO2 reached a level almost the same as the peak in the Cambrian and the AGT rebounded from the low point of the Ice Age. In the 40 MYs it took for habitat and life to reach a position where recovery was possible, a little more than 200 parts per million by volume (ppmv) of CO2 was added to the atmosphere at an average rate of about 5ppmv/MYs.
The mid to late-Silurian was a time of climate and land stability. Land plants capitalised on the stability and distributed themselves about the wetlands that existed at that time - most of which were in the southern hemisphere. Living biomass growth consumed a considerable volume of the ACCO2 as plants expanded into new habitats. A stable land mass and a supportive climate produced suitable habitats for life to flourish.
This was also the time when the early plants were evolving into a new subkingdom of land plants, tracheophytes (vascular plants). By about 425MYA vascular plants were present on earth. The new genera of vascular plants that originated were no longer in need of a constant supply of water at their feet. They distributed themselves about the available “dry” land that could provide them with the resources they needed for their survival.
As they occupied more of the available land they drew on the ACCO2 and reduced it considerably, as shown in Figures 2 and 3, reaching a low in the late Silurian that coincided with the beginning of the formation of Euramerica, about 405MYA.
In a time of 38MYs, the mid to late-Silurian plant life consumed about 840ppmv of the ACCO2 at an average rate of 22ppmv/MYs. Biomass increased significantly as the CO2 was converted into plant life.
The formation of the continent of Euramerica, highlighted area 2 in Figure 2, was a period of tectonic turmoil. Slow and persistent habitat destruction as the land masses merged created a loss of biomass that progressively increased the ACCO2 until the late Devonian.
During this time the ACCO2 increased by about 820ppmv at a rate of about 21ppmv/MYs. The AGT accompanied the increase in the ACCO2 from about the time of the Silurian/Devonian Period boundary, as shown on Figure 2, but a sudden turn point about 415MYA began a cooling trend while the ACCO2 was still climbing.
Knowledge of what caused the increase in the ACCO2 is not precise but, regardless of the reason, the importance of recognising that the ACCO2 reached a peak of 2350ppmv in the late-Devonian is that there was a considerable amount of food available to the vascular trees that originated a few million years earlier.
3.2 Trees
Trees were a robust and resilient plant life. They were not edible by animals and their tissue properties prevented them from being easily decomposed by the available resources of that time. Trees became adapted to the various climate zones that existed spreading throughout the world from their inception.
The CO2 trees consumed was not returned to the atmosphere in a cycle that coincided with their birth and death. Instead the atmospheric concentrations of gases altered as trees died and deposited into masses that converted into the coal and natural gas that is mined and used today. Note that the formation of oil is also one associated with dead life matter and applied pressure but has a different process that results in the same consequence for CO2.
The reduction of about 2000ppmv in the ACCO2 by trees, during the late-Devonian and Carboniferous Periods, advanced at a rate of about 22ppmv/MYs. The accumulation of tree mass for the 90MYs that trees consumed CO2 is evidenced by the vast deposits of carbon based matter extracted from the earth during the time of the Homo species existence,
particularly since the introduction of civilisation and the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.
The atmospheric CO2 consumed was not replaced by natural events at any time quickly until humans found a use for the carboniferous deposits, mined and combusted them - with the exception of incidences when either environmental circumstances or tectonic activity exposed the deposits and they were either decomposed or naturally combusted.
As a point of interest, human use of fossil fuels has elevated the ACCO2 from 300ppmv R09 to 416ppmv R08 in the last 70 years. This represents a rate of change in the ACCO2 of 1,657,000ppmv/MYs. This rate of change has never occurred in the Palaeozoic, the Mesozoic or the Cenozoic.
The highest rate of change in the ACCO2 during the Phanerozoic occurred about 150MYA when the ACCO2 increased at a rate of 120ppmv/MYs. In a time of about 2.7MYs the ACCO2 increased from 1093 to 1426ppmv. Life was subjected to considerable habitat destruction shortly before the Jurassic Mass Extinction Event. It was caused by the breakup of Pangaea as the consolidated land mass first separated from Gondwana 180MYA and then into the individual continental land masses that began to drift to their present locations, about 5MYs later.
The carbon deposits of the Palaeozoic lay dormant for the next 300MYs. Any additional contributions to the ACCO2, either by additional exhaust of carbon from the earth or by bacterial or fungal decomposition, were utilised by life to increase biomass to the levels reached today. This includes human contribution to the ACCO2 by the combustion of fossil fuel deposits.
3.3 Fungal decomposition of woody matter
The inability to decompose woody matter prior to 300MYA meant that there was no natural process that returned CO2 consumed by these plants to the atmosphere. The natural food cycle was broken.
Figure 2 shows that fungal decomposition of woody matter, trees in particular, only began about 320 MYA at the earliest. There was no complete decomposition R04 of wood until the end of the Carboniferous Period.
The origination of fungal decomposition of woody matter came very late after trees originated. Much of the wood buried had already converted to coal and wood that was buried and in the process of transformation into coal could not be reached by the fungi. New woody growth that died was accessible to the fungi and by about 300 MYA the fungi became highly active in the decomposition of woody matter they could reach.
Some of the woody matter was covered by earth during the process of decomposition. A great amount of methane gas was released as the fungi consumed the wood buried in the ground. The methane gas remained in the earth and is the principal component of the natural gas extracted and used today.
Fungi needed oxygen to maintain their metabolism. Oxygen was abundant because it was released as waste during photosynthesis and the carbon extracted from the CO2 remained
buried in the earth. There was no process until fungal decomposition began that could combine the oxygen in the atmosphere with the carbon stored in the tree matter.
There should, therefore, be an increasing concentration of oxygen in the atmosphere from the time that trees consumed CO2 for their growth until fungal decomposition became effective.
3.4 Changing levels of atmospheric concentration of oxygen during the Palaeozoic
An examination of the research conducted by Berner, R.A., Atmospheric oxygen over Phanerozoic time R05 , and Schachat, S. R., et al, Phanerozoic pO2 and the early evolution of terrestrial animals R06 showed their findings in the rising concentration of oxygen during the periods of discussion in this essay.
The data from their atmospheric oxygen concentration graphs was extracted and plotted against the graphed information contained in Figure 2 to show the relationship between the ACCO2 and the atmospheric concentration of oxygen from the two (2) sources.
On Figure 4, oxygen curve 1 is a reconstruction of the extracted data from Berner, R. A., and oxygen curve 2 is a reconstruction of the extracted data from Schachat, S. R., et al. The CO2 curve is from Nasif Nahle.
Both oxygen curves 1 and 2 show that the atmospheric concentration of oxygen increased once woody plants took hold on earth, particularly when the AGT was below 23°C.
The atmospheric oxygen concentration percentage graph “d”, by Glasspool, I and Scott, A., in their August 2010 publication, Phanerozoic atmospheric oxygen concentrations reconstructed from sedimentary charcoal R07, has oxygen concentration data that is midway between the oxygen concentrations in the two other publications. Their graph also shows that the rise in the oxygen concentration coincided with the origination of trees.
The slow oxygen concentration upturn during the early Devonian indicated in the Glasspool, I. and Scott, A. graph grows to an increased atmospheric concentration of oxygen in the late Devonian that continues to the early Triassic as plant biomass expanded in the Carboniferous and Permian. The concentration of atmospheric oxygen was shown in an approximate range of about 25 to 32% of the atmosphere during this time frame.
The data from the authors of the three (3) publications indicate that a reduction of about 0.225% in the ACCO2, from the time plants took hold on land to the early Triassic, resulted in an increase in the atmospheric concentration of oxygen of 10% or more, depending on which author the data is derived from.
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The increase in the percentage concentration of atmospheric oxygen was much greater than would be expected if the sole contributor to oxygenation of the atmosphere was photosynthesis stripping the oxygen off CO2 and expelling it into the atmosphere as its waste product. It is even more difficult to comprehend the extent of increase in the atmospheric concentration of oxygen when considering that land animals became prominent during the late Devonian and increased in numbers throughout the Carboniferous and Permian Periods. Animals would have consumed oxygen and released CO2 as their waste.
However, noting that the atmospheric concentration of oxygen increased as plant matter increased in biomass and that the carbon in the consumed CO2 was trapped in dead trees that were not able to be decomposed, gives confidence that the reduction in the ACCO2 is related to increases in the atmospheric concentration of oxygen by plant photosynthesis even though the concentration levels determined by the above mentioned authors from this source alone are improbable.
The issue with the corresponding consumption of CO2 and the determination of the increasing concentration of atmospheric oxygen by isotopic oxygen assessment will be addressed in a later paper.
4.0 The Karoo Ice Age
The 60 million years the Karoo Ice Age spanned shows that three (3) AGT trend turn points happened during a time when the earth was in a state of cool climate. The timings, the changing ACCO2 and the AGT movements during the Karoo Ice Age are shown on Figure 5.
inspection of the graphed data shows that:
The ACCO2 was declining steadily for a period of about 90 MYs, beginning about 375MYA.
The AGT was also steadily declining almost in unison to the reduction of the ACCO2, but about 20MYs behind, until about 355MYA, when two rapid AGT trend turn points reversed the relative positions of the AGT and ACCO2 trends and the ACCO2 trend was then 10 to 15MYs behind.
About 346MYA, after a short warming cooling trend began that took the AGT to the first low the Karoo ice age 31MYs later.
The AGT began a warming trend (at a rate of 0.5°C/MYs) at the turn point 315MYA that peaked the AGT at 15.8°C 309MYA.
A rapid change in the warming trend at the turn point 309MYA began an AGT cooling trend (at a rate of -0.34°C/MYs) that took the AGT to the second low AGT point of 12.7°C 300MYA.
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The second low point 300MYA was the AGT trend turn point to a warming trend that continued throughout the Permian’s 50MYs duration at an average trend rate of 0.31°C/MYs.
4.1 The decline in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide
The perplexing issue with the progress to the three low points and the rebounds to warming trends in the Carboniferous Period shown in Figure 5 is that the ACCO2 was steadily in decline from about 370MYA until 262MYA. Nasif Nahle’s graph the ACCO2 data was extracted from was not particularly different to other models (the Royer compilation and the models Geocarb III, COPSE and Rothman) that depict the ACCO2 during the Palaeozoic. They all refer to the Devonian and Carboniferous Periods as times of a rapid decline in the ACCO2 with recovery in the Permian Period.
On Nasif Nahle’s diagram the turn point in the ACCO2 trend was not until it reached the low of 238ppmv 262MYA. Then it started to climb slowly and steadily as the Permian was coming to an explosive end.
None of the models indicate that the ACCO2 ever increased to the levels that existed before the late Devonian Period or that it spasmodically and rapidly increased or decreased in levels of sufficient significance to cause the considerable changes in the AGT trend in the very short time spans needed to cause a turn point.
Nor could the levels of the ACCO2 return to the same levels in the late-Carboniferous and early-Permian as existed in the early Silurian Period. Although there was a greater atmospheric concentration of oxygen, the carbon from the CO2 used by life for growth and as food was held fast in many forms - in coal, in fossilised wood, wood in the process of fossilisation, in methane trapped beneath the earth’s surface, in oil or in dead life forms that were being converted into oil.
There was no tumultuous tectonic cataclysm that erupted at that time. Pangaea had formed and remained a stable land mass for many millions of years. Any additional CO2 made available to life by normal tectonic activity or decomposition was quickly consumed during the times biomass had an opportunity to increase once the tragedy of the Permian Mass Extinction passed.
Life had a great opportunity to evolve, adapt, proliferate, distribute into and occupy the available habitats of the earth from the mid-Triassic to the time of the end-Cretaceous Mass Extinction Event despite the damage to life at the times of the major Triassic and minor Jurassic Mass Extinction Events.
Living biomass growth was abundant as mammals (including birds) and bony fish added to the orders of existing plant and animal life between the times of the three (3) Mesozoic mass extinction events. The new orders joined in life’s symbiotic relationship to support their individual permanence in unison to the relationship held with bacterial and fungal decomposition that ensured the recycling of CO2 for all life’s food needs.
The Cenozoic continued the growing pace of biomass. Mammals, birds and bony fish became the prominent animal life. Bacteria, fungi and protista never gave up their importance to support life and worked in unison with the plant and animal biomass in a system that occupies every possible habitat on the earth’s continents that continues to this day.
5.0 Conclusions
The issue with CO2 is that it is the driver of biomass and not of global warming.
The physical properties that describe CO2 have not changed in the last 610MYs. The way they applied 610MYA is exactly as they apply today. The role of plants is to convert CO2 into the food they need and which animals need to take from plants. Everything else alive on earth depends on plants for their survival.
The investigation resulted in the following conclusions:
1. There was no correlation of the AGT and the ACCO2 during the Palaeozoic.
2. The changes in the ACCO2 was caused by biomass growth.
3. Organic decomposition of woody plant matter to return CO2 to the atmosphere began, at the earliest, 320MYA.
4. The mass of fossil fuel deposits created during the Devonian, Carboniferous and Permian Periods is evidenced by the discovery, extraction and use of fossil fuel deposits particularly in the last 250 years.
5. Increased oxygenation of the atmosphere increased as living plant biomass consumed CO2, expelled oxygen and dead woody matter (trees) were left un-decomposed.
6. The reduction in the AGT at the time of the Andean-Saharan Ice Age cannot be explained by changes in the ACCO2 as it was on an increasing volume trend.
7. The cause of the two (2) warming trends at the Karoo Ice Age low points cannot be explained by changes in the ACCO2 as it was on a declining volume trend.
8. There were no sporadic and rapid major changes in the ACCO2 that could cause a turn point at any time of the Palaeozoic.
9. Modelling of changes to the AGT based on the current rate of increase of the ACCO2 will not apply if humans cease to combust fossil fuels.
6.0 References
R01 Patton, D., Defining Sun Requirements for Plants, Kansas State University, Accessed 23 March, 2021, https://www.johnson.k-state.edu/lawn-garden/agent-articles/miscellaneous/defining-sun-requirementsfor-plants.html
R02 Scotese, C. R., 2002 http://www.scotese.com, (Paleomap website). Average global temperature graph at http://www.scotese.com/climate.htm
R03 Nasif Nahle, 2007, Cycles of Global Climate Change Biology Cabinet Journal Online. Article no. 295. http://www.biocab.org/Climate_Geologic_Timescale.html, and http://www.biocab.org/Carbon_Dioxide_Geological_Timescale.html. Accessed: 05/03/2017
On the graph Nasif Nahle referred to his sources as: 1- Analysis of the Temperature Oscillations in Geological Eras, by Dr. C. R. Scotese ©2002. 2. 2Ruddiman, W. F. 2001, Earth’s Climate: past and future. W. H. Freeman & Sons. New York, NY. 3Mark Pagani et al, Marked Decline in Atmospheric Carbon Dioxide Concentrations During the Paleocene. Science; Vol. 309, No. 5734; pp 600-603. 22 July 2005. Conclusions and Interpretations by Nasif Nahle ©2005, 2007. Corrected on 07 July 2008 (CO2:Ordovician Period).
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R04 The National Science Foundation, Study on Fungi Evolution Answers Questions About Ancient Coal Formation and May Help Advance Future Biofuels Production, 28 June, 2012. Program contact: Lydeard, C., Principal Investigator: Hibbett, D. Available from: https://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=124570
Biello, D., White Rot Fungi Slowed Coal Formation, 28 June, 2012, Scientific American. Available from: https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/mushroom-evolution-breaks-down-lignin-slows-coalformation/
R05 Berner, R. A., Atmospheric oxygen over Phanerozoic time, Department of Geology and Geophysics, Yale University, New Haven, CT 06520-8109PNAS September 28, 1999 96 (20) 10955-10957; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.96.20.10955 https://www.pnas.org/content/96/20/10955
R06 Schachat, S. R., et al, Phanerozoic pO2 and the early evolution of terrestrial animals, 24 January, 2018, https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2017.2631 https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/10.1098/rspb.2017.2631
R07 Glasspool, I. and Scott, A., Phanerozoic atmospheric oxygen concentrations reconstructed from sedimentary charcoal, 01 August, 2010, Nature Geoscience, Publisher, Nature Publishing Group, DOI: 10.1038/ngeo923, Graphs available at: https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Phanerozoic-inertinite-distribution-andpredictions-of-pO2a-Inertinite-abundance-Line_fig1_45436094 , Article available at: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/45436094_Phanerozoic_atmospheric_oxygen_concentrations _reconstructed_from_sedimentary_charcoal
R08 NASA, Carbon Dioxide, Latest measurement February, 2021, https://climate.nasa.gov/vital-signs/carbon-dioxide/
R09 A History Of Earth’s Carbon Dioxide Levels Over Time (Carbon Dioxide Level Timeline), & How Fast CO2 Levels Are Increasing, 3 February, 2019, updated 15 February, 2021, Better Meets Reality, https://bettermeetsreality.com/a-history-of-earths-carbon-dioxide-levels-over-time-carbon-dioxidelevel-timeline-how-fast-c02-levels-are-increasing/