Earth will not be able to support and sustain life forever. Our oxygen-rich atmosphere may only last another billion years, according to a new study in Nature Geoscience.
This major milestone in our planet's history could pose a risk to life on Earth. But that doesn't mean we should be too worried just yet.
Some believe that humans should start preparing for that day that Earth will become uninhabitable. Other experts believe that we shouldn't rush to prepare for such a potentially grim possibility. Since the Earth's atmosphere is about 65% nitrogen and 26% oxygen, it's fair to say that most of the oxygen on Earth is either in the air or in water. That leaves a lot of room for environmental change.
If the entire world's oxygen suddenly vanished, the planet's water would probably also be lost. Because water is necessary to sustain life, it wouldn't be long before the other life forms on Earth would be extinct. The Earth would probably become a barren, brown, desert-like landscape, and there might be no life on the planet. Of course, it's extremely unlikely that the entire world's oxygen would suddenly disappear, and the increase in volcanic activity on Earth could actually fill that gap. As Prof. William Welch at Clemson University explains:
"There is positive feedback, and it works in the opposite direction. It is difficult to say what the feedbacks are, but they work in the opposite direction of what people are worried about."
However, if that were the case, a massive amount of freshwater would also quickly evaporate, and the planet would become dry as a bone.
From a purely scientific perspective, the Earth doesn't have long to go until it becomes uninhabitable. But most of us don't feel the Earth's major milestone is a threat. That's because most of us aren't scientists, and we aren't particularly interested in learning about how our planet will become uninhabitable. Many people, however, believe that we will be able to survive the extinction of the vast majority of life forms on the planet, so it's easy to see how they might draw that conclusion.
Carbon dioxide, alongside water, is one of the key fixings that plants need to perform photosynthesis. With falling carbon dioxide levels, less photosynthesis will happen and a few kinds of plants may vanish by and large. Less photosynthesis implies less oxygen creation, and bit by bit oxygen fixations in Earth's environment will drop, making an emergency for different types of future life.
All in all, when will this occur? To locate this out scientists from Japan and the US utilized PC reenactments to display the future advancement of the carbon, oxygen, phosphorous, and sulfur cycles on the outside of the Earth. They additionally thought about environmental advancement and how the outside of the Earth (the hull, seas, and air) connects with the planet's inside (the mantle). Researchers used this model to address questions regarding atmospheric decomposition, the locations of oxygen fixations, the location of carbon fixations, and ocean depths.
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