Some British scientists think that global warming was as bad in the days of the dinosaur as it is today. Today it's estimated that we produce about 500,000,000 tons of methane from a variety of natural and industrial sources. The scientists think that dinosaurs alone produced 520,000,000 tons.
They base their estimate on the current production of methane by cows. Assuming that cows produce between 50-100 million tons a year, their estimate of the dinosaur population had to produce 520,000,000.
It seems a fairly shaky proposition to me. However, it did pass the judgement of the peer reviewers of Current Biology. I hope that the reviewers asked such questions as:
- How did the investigators calculate the number of cows on earth today and dinosaurs in the Mesozoic Age?
- Is the estimated annual output of methane by cows consistent around the globe?
- How did they estimate the annual output of methane by dinosaurs?
No comments:
Post a Comment