In recent years, doomsday predictions have inundated us. Some come from political analysts who predict global conflict and the threat of World War 3, while others come from scientists who warn about the dangers of artificial intelligence.
And now, this most recent NASA discovery adds yet another unsettling possibility to the growing list of worries about the future of Earth.
Image Source: Getty/Photograzia
The space agency is now warning about something much more fundamental: our atmosphere’s capacity to sustain life.
To make matters worse, the Trump administration has already announced plans to cut funding for space research, including missions that measure greenhouse gas emissions to track how human activity affects the planet.
NASA’s Astrobiology program
The results of a recently published study, however, are the most alarming. The results, which were supported in part by NASA’s Astrobiology program, raise the possibility that Earth’s oxygen-rich environment may not endure as long as we previously thought.
According to the study, if the Sun continues to increase in temperature over time, Earth’s oxygen levels could decline drastically in approximately a billion years, reaching less than 10% of their current levels.
The twist is that scientists think the planet may start its irreversible decline into what they refer to as a “great deoxygenation” much earlier. According to some, this gradual collapse could begin as soon as 10,000 years from now.
Christopher Reinhard of the Georgia Institute of Technology, who co-authored the paper, said, “The lifespan of oxygen-rich atmospheres may be shorter than we previously thought.”
This study looked at how increasing solar radiation levels will eventually disrupt the delicate gas balance in our atmosphere. Researchers from NASA and Toho University in Japan carried out the study.
Image Source: Getty/Jose A. Bernat Bacete
The Earth’s surface temperature will rise as the Sun’s energy output keeps increasing over millions of years. As a result, airborne carbon dioxide decomposes more quickly.
That poses a serious threat to life as we know it. Carbon dioxide is necessary for photosynthesis in plants. Plants start to die out when CO₂ levels start to fall sharply.
Earth’s primary oxygen source
The primary source of oxygen on Earth is plants, so their extinction would prevent the production of new oxygen. All living things would, however, continue to consume the remaining oxygen at the same time. Only anaerobic microbes, simple organisms that do not require oxygen, are predicted to survive.
The ozone layer disappears along with oxygen. Without it, the Earth would become even more uninhabitable as dangerous UV radiation from the Sun would freely strike its surface.
According to lead researcher Kazumi Ozaki, this transition would leave Earth with a methane-rich atmosphere, very low CO₂ levels, and no ozone protection at all.
Although it sounds horrifying, Earth has experienced something similar before. Our atmosphere was very similar billions of years ago, before animals or humans appeared, until the Great Oxidation Event changed it and allowed for complex life.
Fortunately, we are not expected to experience this significant change anytime soon. About a billion years from now, scientists predict that the oxygen supply on Earth will finally collapse.
Furthermore, we still have time, even though the decline might technically start 10,000 years from now. It corresponds to roughly 400 generations into the future in human terms.
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