Giant dinosaurs could have warmed the planet with their flatulence

[Archean]

Giant dinosaurs could have warmed the planet with their flatulence



British scientists have calculated the methane output of sauropods, including the species known as Brontosaurus. By scaling up the digestive wind of cows, they estimate that the population of dinosaurs - as a whole - produced 520 million tonnes of gas annually. They suggest the gas could have been a key factor in the warm climate 150 million years ago.

source 2:
The three researchers who penned the paper aren't blaming the Mesozoic's warm, wet climate entirely on sauropods and write that “wetlands, forest fires, and leaking gasfields” may also have contributed to the presence of atmospheric methane at the time. But the trio do note that the advent of sauropods would not have been possible without a lot of CO2 in the atmosphere and the warming it created, as this created an environment which plants thrived which in turn created numerous ecological niches for giant herbivores.

This kind of news doesn't "come out" often if at all from scientific community, but I am sure not many would want to be around when these monsters ahmm ........ passed wind.

 

[cliffordcooley]

I object your honor, speculation!

Are we honestly paying scientist to dream up new ways of what might have been?

 

[SNGX1275]

I haven't read the article yet, but, until the last half of the Cretaceous global temperatures were actually decreasing from a previous high at the start of the Triassic. Perhaps the amount of dinosaurs greatly increased during the last half of the Cretaceous? I haven't read anything about that but maybe it happened. CO2 was really high at the beginning of the Triassic, but methane is a much stronger greenhouse gas - again though, doesn't explain the decrease in temps from the beginning of the Triassic through mid Cretaceous.

 

[captaincranky]

I object your honor, speculation!

Are we honestly paying scientist to dream up new ways of what might have been?

Well, you know what they say in academic circles, "publish, or perish". That said, perhaps hot air and flatulence from the scientific community is also contributing to global warming.

That said, nothing farts out greenhouse gases and other pollutants, like a poorly tuned, worn out, city transit, diesel bus. Take a whole herd of dinosaurs to outdo one of those clunkers.

But, don't you wish you had a few freight trains full of "Beano", and a time machine. Wonder what the ramifications of an epic journey such as that would have been?