Chapter 493: :Meet the lion and skeleton knight again [anti-theft] [fiveK] (1/2)

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【Anti-theft chapter, refreshed at old time】

[Don’t go into details]

[Chapter 3 will be an update of the number 4]

On October 11, the first phase of the fifteenth meeting of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (COP15) will kick off in Kunming, Yunnan Province.

2021 is when the global ecological environment is being affected by climate warming. This meeting is undoubtedly the most important meeting of the United Nations and the most important international meeting hosted by our country this year. The theme of this conference is ”Ecological Civilization: Building a Community of Life on Earth”, advocating the promotion of global ecological civilization construction, emphasizing that man and nature are a community of life, emphasizing respect for nature, conformity to nature, and protection of nature, and strive to reach the agreement proposed by 2050. To realize the sustainable use of biodiversity and benefit sharing by the year, and realize the vision of ”harmonious symbiosis between man and nature”.

At the opening of the conference, what the outside world is most concerned about is: What does global warming actually mean for the earth, humans and other living things? Today, let us go back to about 55 million years ago and experience the ”Paleocene·Eocene Extreme Heat Event Period (PETM together, which may give us some inspiration today.

PETM began 10 million years after the extinction of the dinosaurs

10 million years after the extinction of the dinosaurs, the global average temperature suddenly rose sharply. During this period known as the ”Paleocene·Eocene Extreme Heat Event (PETM, large-scale emissions of greenhouse gases led to the global The temperature has risen by at least 5 degrees.

Provided by Red Star News During this period of abnormal global climate, the global ecological environment has undergone drastic changes due to the turbulence of the atmosphere and ocean

It is reported that the root cause of this global climate change does not come from the atmosphere, but from under the ocean. In this regard, some paleontologists and geologists speculate that in the period after the Paleocene or the extinction of the dinosaurs, a certain degree of natural warming occurred in the global climate, which caused a large amount of methane crystals to be deposited and converted into gas. The seabed emits excessive amounts of methane gas into the water and air. This greenhouse gas, which is stronger than carbon dioxide, warms the earth rapidly, causing the average temperature to soar by more than 12 degrees in less than 20,000 years, and thereafter 7 It maintained a stable level for more than 10,000 years, and then began a long and slow decline.

During this period of abnormal global climate, due to the turbulence of the atmosphere and ocean, the global ecological environment has undergone drastic changes: there is no ice in the polar regions, and alligators ran to settle in the overgrown swamps near the Arctic; subtropical forests spread all over the continent and extended to the northern latitudes. Regions; most of the deep-sea creatures are extinct, terrestrial animals have decreased and migrated northward to the colder climate areas to thrive, and some new animal groups, including primates, have begun to take a place here...

Provided by Red Star News During this period of global climate anomalies, most of the deep-sea creatures became extinct, and terrestrial animals decreased and migrated northward to thrive in colder climates.

Everything that happened during this ancient period of ”global warming” is fully reflected in the fossil record. Now, as global warming is intensifying, these records may help humans understand its impact on the ecological environment.

Biological extinction begins in the ocean

In this global warming, marine ecology has suffered the most deadly blow.

In a sense, the ocean on Earth is like a huge conveyor belt. Under normal circumstances, cold air and seawater are mixed in the southern hemisphere to form ”deep water” with high density and low temperature, and it is constantly in motion. However, during the warmer PETM period, the high temperature climate caused more rainfall in the Arctic, which weakened ocean currents and changed the marine ecological environment.

Provided by Red Star News PETM has suffered the most deadly blow to marine ecology

In less than 5,000 years, cold air and sea water in the North Atlantic began to mix, and changes in water currents warmed the ocean. The higher temperature accelerates the metabolism of aquatic organisms, and their demand for food increases accordingly. However, the paradox is that the higher the water temperature, the lower the oxygen content, which leads to the extinction of a large number of deep-sea creatures. In short, the warm PETM period puts marine life in a difficult survival situation: animals need more food to survive, and the lack of oxygen makes the living environment worse, and the lack of nutrients continues to destroy the ocean. Food chain.

The impact of this period of climate change lasted for nearly 100,000 years, and some organisms died because they could not keep up with the changes. For example, a deep-sea species called ”benthic foraminifera” suffered a large-scale death due to this change. For a long time, benthic foraminifera have been the staple food of many small marine organisms. Because of their abundant presence in the fossil record, they are also a favorite of paleontologists who study evolution and extinction.

Scientists’ research found that more than 35% of “benthic foraminifera” became extinct during this period. This is the only major crisis for this species in the past 90 million years. Paleontologists speculate that their disappearance has had a huge impact on the marine ecological chain.

Mammals gradually ”shrinking”

66 million years ago, before an asteroid destroyed all non-avian dinosaurs, the largest furry creature on Earth weighed only 11 pounds (about 4.98 kilograms), the size of an American badger. About 1 million years later, as the new ecological niche was cleared by mass extinction, the largest furry creature was about the size of a German Shepherd.

Provided by Red Star News Moose

Animals thrived in the warm forest, forming new forms such as herbivores, carnivores, and omnivores. However, under the high temperatures of the PETM period, some animals began to shrink in size, which is similar to what biologists have found in mammals today. For example, in cold climates, moose usually weigh about 80 pounds (about 36.28 kg) than their southern counterparts.

This is because the larger the animal size, the stronger the ability to retain heat in the body. Relative to the overall mass, the smaller the proportion of body surface exposed to the natural environment, the slower the animal loses heat. But in the hot season, keeping warm is not so important. Exhausting excess heat becomes the key to survival, and small organisms have a larger surface area to weight ratio, which makes it easier to excrete heat. For example, an early horse called Sifrhippussandrae shrank by nearly a third during the PETM period, while an early primate called Cantusabditus shrank in the middle to late stages of the PETM period. About 10%.

Increased diversity of insects ”survival”

Unlike mammals, the PETM period is undoubtedly a good time for insects. The warm climate promotes the spread of dry tropical forests to the north. Since many insects are thermophilic animals (their body temperature and physiological needs are related to the climate of their habitat), climate warming has opened new doors for the emergence of a large number of tiny organisms.

Provided by Red Star News Climate warming has opened new doors for the emergence of a large number of tiny organisms

These evidences are preserved in the fossils of this period. Scientists say that more than 5,000 plant fossils from before, during and after the PETM period show that the number of insects and the diversity of damage are on the rise. At the same time, a study conducted in the Great Horn Basin of Wyoming, USA, showed that more than half of the leaves of the fossils left over from this period were destroyed by insects, which is 20% higher than before or after the PETM period.

And now, some insects, such as some mosquitoes and ticks, have been adapting to the new climate environment and expanding into new areas of life. A 2019 study estimated that by 2080, the number of people worldwide exposed to mosquito-borne diseases could increase by nearly 1 billion.

Species ”change” extremely fast

On the earth, changes are taking place every minute and every second, some species are going extinct, and some are evolving. Paleontologists call the rate at which new species replace old ones ”replacement.” Fossils from the Paleocene oceanic relics indicate that near the surface, the ”replacement” process occurred at an extremely rapid rate during the PETM period.

The fossils from the Paleocene marine relics provided by Red Star News indicate that near the surface, the ”replacement” process occurred at a very fast rate during the PETM period.

In the shallow waters near the coast, snails and clams died one after another, but they were soon replaced by similar molluscs, which played the same ecological role-sifting sand and eating seaweed. The changes in other species are even more dramatic. For example, after experiencing a mass extinction, the triggerfish and puffer fish took nearly 20 million years to evolve enough new species to restore their lost diversity.