Elon Musk may be talking about sending humans to Mars, and Bill Gates may be talking about reversing climate change – but the air we breathe could run out soon.
/ Our oxygen-rich atmosphere may only last a billion years, a new study finds. Published in magazine in Nature Geoscience, called “The Future Lifespan of Earth’s Oxygen-Rich Atmosphere,” explains that even if it won’t happen in the near future, when the change comes, it will happen pretty quickly.
This shift will return the planet to roughly the state it was in before what is known as the Great Oxidation Event, about 2.4 billion years ago. “The lifespan of oxygen-based biosignatures in Earth’s atmosphere remains uncertain, especially for the distant future,” the scientists write in their paper.
They also explain what the oxygen deprivation will look like, “ with atmospheric O2 plummeting to levels reminiscent of Archaic Earth, will most likely be activated before humid greenhouse conditions begin in Earth’s climate system and before the extensive loss of surface water . from the atmosphere. “
They also elaborate further that it may be inevitable: “Future deoxygenation is an inevitable consequence of increasing solar fluxes, while their precise timing is modulated by the reducing power exchange flux between the mantle and the ocean-atmosphere crust system.”
Scientists have previously predicted that more radiation from the sun would sweep ocean water off our planet’s surface in about 2 billion years, but the new model – based on an average of nearly 400,000 simulations – says the reduction in oxygen will be deadly. of life first.
“The drop in oxygen is very, very extreme,” said earth scientist Chris Reinhard of the Georgia Institute of Technology New scientist. “We are talking about a million times less oxygen than now.”
Researchers also stressed that we may need to hunt for other biosignatures in addition to oxygen to have the best chance of spotting life.