Did dinosaur 'emissions' help warm the prehistoric climate? (+video)
In a new study, scientists theorize that giant, vegetation-munching sauropods emitted nearly as much methane each year into the warm atmosphere as do all natural and industrial sources today.
Worried about about global warming and the methane that cattle burp into the air? Be glad Brontosaurus is extinct.
Sauropods – giant, long-necked, prehistoric vegans that roamed the planet for more than 100 million years through the end of the age of dinosaurs – released nearly as much methane into the atmosphere each year as do all natural and industrial sources today, according to an estimate from scientists in Britain.
The team, led by Liverpool John Moores University biologist David Wilkinson, suggests that methane emissions from sauropods could have played a key role in sustaining a climate already warmed by carbon-dioxide concentrations some 2 to 6 times higher than today.
IN PICTURES: Fearsome dinosaurs
It was a world in which the poles were ice-free and crocodile-like creatures thrived in the Arctic. Scientists have pinned the high levels of carbon dioxide on widespread volcanic activity as plate tectonics rearranged continents.
CO2 and methane are both greenhouse-gases, with CO2 staying in the atmosphere far longer than methane. But while a newly minted methane molecule will remain airborne for only about 10 years, molecule for molecule, it is a far more potent greenhouse gas.
Back in the day, the warm wet climate and an atmosphere rich in CO2 would have turned much of the available land area into enormous smorgasbords, brimming with a wide variety of leafy treetops and fulsome shrubs – all within reach of the animals' long necks.
