Life and the Planet – Part 2

23 05 2011

Lynn Margulis, who as Lovelock said earlier “put the flesh and bones” on Gaia, spoke on ‘Evolutionary novelty in the Proterozoic eon: Symbiogenesis in Gaia’. She described a sequence of evolutionary events involving eubacteria and thermobacteria coming together to form the first eukaryotes. This occurred not through random mutations but through symbiosis occurring over evolutionary time scales, or symbiogenesis. While Lynn is often credited with the theory of symbiogenesis she emphatically states that others preceded her in this idea, particular a Russian scientist, Boris Mikhaylovich Kozo-Polyansky, who in 1924 published a book “Symbiogenesis: A New Principle in Evolution”. Still, Lynn undoubtedly put the “flesh and bones” on the theory of Symbiogenesis as well.

Nicholas Butterfield spoke on ‘Multicellularity in deep time’ where he described the early fossil record of various multicellular life forms. He pointed out that by ~1 Ga ago there is evidence for clonal colonies of cyanobacteria, coenobial and filamentous green algae, and branched multicellular filaments of red algae. There is even a 850 Ma old fungus-like fossil with complex multicellular vesicles/hyphae. He states, however, that at this time there is “not a whisper of land plant fossils”. Doubting that this is a preservation issue, he left open the question of plant and animal life on land in the Proterozoic.

Speaking on ‘Neoproterozoic glaciation: Microbes at work in terrestrial oases’ Ian Fairchild acknowledged that even under the most extreme conditions of Snowball Earth life must have persisted and even flourished in places. He described stratigraphic sequences from northern Svalbard which bear units of sandstone, rhythmites, and carbonates which appear to owe their origin, in part, to microbial mats of cyanobacteria. He concludes that “extremophile” life flourished at this time and provided a geochemical record of the Cryogenian (Snowball Earth) period. Unfortunately, he offered no ideas on possible biological feedbacks on the climate. Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Acid rain, Climate change, Gaia theory, Moss ecology, Peatlands

Life and the Planet – Part 1

23 05 2011

Life and the Planet meeting at the Geological Society of London

I recently attended the Life and the Planet meeting (May 5-6) held at Burlington House, home of the Geological Society of London, of which I am a fellow. In attendance were many of my friends and colleagues from the Gaia in Oxford meetings, including Jim and Sandy Lovelock, Lynn Margulis, Susan Canney, Tim Lenton, Andrew Watson, David Wilkinson, Anne and Mark Primavesi, and Bill Chaloner.

While the meeting had a Gaia theme, the program consisted of a number of speakers mainly from the geological sciences who are new to the discussion of Gaia. In general the speakers did a fair job of characterizing many of the dramatic shifts in earth’s history, such as the great oxygenation event, snowball earth, and the effects of the first plants on the planet, but many avoided mention of feedbacks, regulation, chaos, and complexity.

The one exception, of course, was the opening talk by James Lovelock. His keynote address was masterful, starting with a concise historical overview of Gaia theory for the many newcomers to the debate. He pointed out that the “atmosphere is almost entirely a biological product”. In his unapologetically alarmist voice he warned of “massively harmful climate change”, and suggested that climate change should mobilize science to geoengineer a fix. He then brought Gaia into the discussion of snowball earth by proposing a set of phytoplankton-driven ocean/atmosphere feedbacks involving sulfur pathways that could help drive the onset and termination of ice age conditions. Acknowledging ocean scientist Brian von Herzen in helping formulate this biotic ice age feedback, he stated “We have no notion if it offers a correct explanation but I put it to you as an example of the need for a whole science approach when seeking explanations of planetary scale phenomenon on a live planet like the Earth” (my bold). He then added, “This is especially true of the next catastrophe, the climate change we are now causing by the excessive excretion of CO2.” Read the rest of this entry »


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Categories : Climate change, Gaia theory, Ice age initiation

Ecoliteracy in Action

29 11 2010

On December 18 I will be speaking at the Ecoliteracy in Action course being held at Esalen Institute in Big Sur, CA at the invitation of Kat Steele, the course coordinator. The title of my talk is “Gaia theory and climate change”. Prior to my talk on the 18th my good friend Daniel Peterson will be presenting on “Primitive skills and the Esselen tribal ways”, a discussion and hands on workshop relating to living off the land and crafting tools from natural materials. See the flyer below:


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Categories : Announcements, Big Sur, Climate change, Gaia theory, Native people

Carbon storage augmentation in fire-managed forests

31 03 2010

Big Sur fire 2008 (photo by Lee Klinger)

Science Daily reports on a recent study on the carbon storage in fire-managed forests published by a former colleague of mine at the National Center for Atmospheric Research. Christine Wiedinmyer, with whom I collaborated on a field study of oak forests in eastern Texas back in 1998, is the lead author on the study that examines the use of prescribed fires in the management of western US forests.

Christine states “It appears that prescribed burns can be an important piece of a climate change strategy”, adding “If we reintroduce fires into our ecosystems, we may be able to protect larger trees and significantly reduce the amount of carbon released into the atmosphere by major wildfires.” This is another bit of evidence that backs the fire mimicry approach in forest management. One word of caution, this study relies in part on mathematical models are not accurate representations of nature.

The Science Daily report “Prescribed burns may help reduce US carbon footprint” can be found here.


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Categories : Climate change, Fire ecology

The potential role of peatland dynamics in ice-age initiation

10 01 2010

As I mentioned in a previous post I am putting up some of my earlier work on feedback mechanisms by which the planet cools itself. This background will be useful in an upcoming post on planetary temperature regulation.

The potential role of peatland dynamics in ice-age initiation

by Lee F. Klinger, John A. Taylor, & Lars G. Franzen

Quaternary Research 45: 89-92 (1996)

Summary – Physical and chemical coupling of peatland vegetation, soils and landforms and atmosphere creates feedbacks which may be important in ice-age initiation. A box diffusion CO2 exchange model shows that a transient forcing of 500Gt C (the amount proposed to have accumulated in peatlands during the last interglacial-glacial transition) over 5000 yr results in a lowering of atmospheric CO2 by about 40 ppm. Proxy data indicate that a decrease in atmospheric CO2 may have occurred over the last 5000 years up to pre-industrial times, and the amount (~22 ppm lowering in 5000 yrs) is similar to that calculated from Holocene peatland expansion. These results suggest that models should consider the role of peatlands in ice-age initiation.

View the entire paper here.

In Fig. 2 (see below) we present evidence that prior to the industrial era atmospheric CO2 was undergoing a decline. We attribute the decline to large-scale landscape transformation involving the replacement of forests by peatlands. Peatlands store immense amounts of carbon and, as described in an earlier publication, are potentially powerful organs that help cool the planet.


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Categories : Climate change, Gaia theory, Ice age initiation, Peatlands, Plant succession

Peatland formation and ice ages: a possible Gaian mechanism related to vegetation succession

6 01 2010

To prepare readers for some upcoming posts on the implications of Gaia theory in climate change predictions I would like to provide some background literature of my earlier work in this area. Below is a paper I gave at the American Geophysical Union Chapman Conference on the Gaia Hypothesis held in San Diego, CA in 1988. This paper was published as a chapter in a 1991 book on the proceedings of the conference: Scientists on Gaia. Here is the summary of my paper:

Peatland formation and ice ages: a possible Gaian mechanism related to vegetation succession

by Lee F. Klinger

Summary – Terrestrial areas, which support over 99% of the earth’s biomass, have considerable potential for being involved in biosphere-atmosphere feedback loops as postulated by the Gaia hypothesis. This paper presents a model of a possible Gaian mechanism related to landscape-level successional changes during a glacial-interglacial cycle. The model is based on the view that terrestrial successions converge toward bogs, rather than toward old-growth forest, and that bogs represent structurally and compositionally stable (climax) communities. The model also assumes, as in classical successional theory, that during the course of succession the biota modifies the environment, both the soil and the atmosphere, to favor the progression of succession toward the climax state. Feedback mechanisms between peatlands (landscapes of bogs and bog forests) and the atmosphere are proposed which should favor the initiation and maintenance of relatively stable, ice age climates. These cooling mechanisms are related to increased albedo, increased evapotranspiration, and decreased atmospheric CO2 associated with the succession from woodlands to peatlands. Ice core and ocean core data for CO2, CH4, and delta 13C and delta 14C isotope ratios are consistent with the proposed terrestrial dynamics involving organic carbon.

Here is the full reference for my paper:

Klinger, L.F. 1991. Peatland formation and ice ages: a possible Gaian mechanism related to vegetation succession (Chap. 28). In: S.H. Schneider & P.J. Boston (eds.), Scientists on Gaia. The MIT Press, Cambridge, pp. 247-255.


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Categories : Climate change, Gaia theory, Peatlands, Plant succession

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