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Issue: Vol. 1 No. 3: September 2024
Type: Article
Published: 2024-09-30
DOI: 10.11646/mesozoic.1.3.19
Page range: 396–407
Abstract views: 187
PDF downloaded: 80

Temporal scaling of carbon emission accumulations and rates of the Meso-Cenozoic hyperthermal events: implication to the Anthropocene global warming

State Key Laboratory of Mineral Deposit Research, School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
State Key Laboratory of Mineral Deposit Research, School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
State Key Laboratory of Mineral Deposit Research, School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China
State Key Laboratory of Oil and Gas Reservoir Geology and Exploitation, Institute of Sedimentary Geology, Chengdu University of Technology, Chengdu 610059, China
State Key Laboratory of Mineral Deposit Research, School of Earth Sciences and Engineering, Nanjing University, Nanjing 210023, China; State Key Laboratory of Paleobiology and Stratigraphy, Nanjing Institute of Geology and Paleontology, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Nanjing 210008, China
time scaling global warming hyperthermal events carbon emission climate change

Abstract

Anthropocene global warming is largely associated with fossil fuel carbon emissions. Temporal scaling provides a way to place current carbon emissions on a geological scale. The scaling of carbon emissions at the onset of hyperthermal events suggests that we might anticipate higher carbon emission rates over longer time scales than what we currently observe in the Anthropocene. However, this inference is uncertain due to limited data concerning the accumulations and time intervals of carbon emissions of Meso-Cenozoic hyperthermal events. While on the long-time hyperthermal-event scales of several to hundreds of kiloyears, modern carbon accumulations and emission rates are 9 times greater than those of the hyperthermal-event emissions. The present-day carbon release can be effectively compared to the onset of hyperthermal events through temporal scaling. If current carbon emission trends persist, we may reach the carbon emission thresholds for hyperthermal events in one to three hundred years, getting an intensified hydrological cycle, enhanced continental weathering and ocean acidification. And if the situation gets worse, we may reach the upper limit of the carbon emission threshold for hyperthermal events (e.g., Permian-Triassic Boundary event, PTB) with a biotic mass extinction over four to thirteen hundred years. This study offers new insights into current carbon emissions from a temporal scale perspective, enhancing our understanding of contemporary climate change.

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