Future without oxygen: Earth's looming atmospheric crisis
Researchers predict that in the future, Earth's atmosphere will undergo significant changes. According to their calculations, the oxygen levels will significantly decrease, posing a threat to many forms of life on our planet.
The forecasts suggest that these changes could materialize in about a billion years. This gives humanity enough time to develop technologies for colonizing other celestial bodies. However, if we fail to leave Earth before these changes occur, it could lead to the ultimate destruction of humanity.
Humanity has another billion years
The composition of the atmosphere in the distant future is expected to be similar to that of about 2.4 billion years ago, before the so-called Great Oxidation Event. Scientists have reached these conclusions thanks to advanced simulations of Earth's biosphere.
Experts explain that over time, the Sun is becoming hotter, leading to increased energy release. This, in turn, causes a decrease in the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere because it breaks down due to heat absorption.
Drastic changes
Experts report that in a billion years, the concentration of carbon dioxide will be so low that photosynthesizing organisms, including plants, will not be able to survive and produce oxygen. The extinction of these organisms will cause a further decrease in the oxygen levels in Earth's atmosphere.
The research findings were published in 2021 in the journal "Nature Geoscience," but the conclusions drawn from them are still relevant. The research was conducted by Kazumi Ozaki from Toho University in Funabashi and Chris Reinhard from the Georgia Institute of Technology, who are involved in the NASA NExSS (Nexus for Exoplanet System Science) project, aimed at searching for habitable planets.
Chris Reinhard expressed the opinion that in a billion years, the oxygen concentration might decrease even a millionfold, while the methane content will rise about 10,000 times, as he stated in an interview with the New Scientist portal.
In the past, scientists predicted that increased solar radiation would lead to the disappearance of oceans in about 2 billion years. However, according to a new model based on average results from nearly 400,000 simulations, life on Earth will first disappear due to the decline in oxygen levels.
