What are “Modern Conditions”?
Just to clarify, I’ll only be discussing conditions pertaining to weather, climate, and environment. Any other conditions may be discussed in future topics. To start things off, the modern speed of warming is extremely rapid; In fact, It’s increasing around 10 times faster than it was during the last ice age. the cause of this warming is mostly due to human activity, specifically, the burning of fossil fuels and the emissions of greenhouse gases. Next, the atmosphere currently is composed of 78% nitrogen (N₂) and 21% oxygen (O₂), with the remaining 1% consisting of trace gases, including ~0.9% argon, ~0.04% carbon dioxide (CO₂), and variable amounts of water vapor (H₂O). Also, the amount of weather extremes is increasing as more hurricanes, droughts, and heat waves are occurring more frequently. Finally, on a positive note, the period of human civilization has been met with a stable climate, but if we’re not careful that could very well change.
What Were the Prehistoric Conditions in Which Dinosaurs Thrived?
In contrast to the modern speed of warming, the prehistoric speed of warming was very gradual, only having temperatures rise from 39 to 45 degrees Fahrenheit over about 5,000 years. The cause of this was obviously not human activity as it is for the modern climate, but instead was mostly caused by cyclical changes in the Earth’s orbit. The atmosphere contained a lot more carbon dioxide and less oxygen. A greenhouse effect formed and created a significantly warmer climate than the climate of today. The weather events that occurred were essentially the same, however they only took place and changed over millennia. Lastly, prehistoric climates varied greatly over the course of millions of years but during the time of the dinosaurs it stayed mostly consistent being one of the warmer periods of time.
So, Could Dinosaurs Even Survive at All?
It’s possible that avian dinosaurs could have survived, maybe even thrived, but as for the non-avian dinosaurs, surviving on modern day Earth would prove to be very challenging. Avian dinosaurs could survive because they are the ones that evolved into birds. And of course, birds can survive Earth now. However, we should just be lucky that dinosaurs aren’t alive now, as that certainly would not end well.
VelociLogic 