Scientists warn: Earth's atmospheric oxygen levels return to 2.4 billion years ago, and may undergo a disruptive change
We all know how important oxygen is to us. Almost all creatures on the earth have to rely on oxygen to survive, but at the beginning of the earth, there was no oxygen on the earth. Surviving bacteria, and this bacteria has a primitive photosynthetic system, oxygen only appears under its photosynthesis, but it produces very little oxygen.
About 2.45 billion years ago, oxygen was suddenly produced and concentrated in large quantities. Some organisms that need oxygen gradually began to survive and reproduce. This phenomenon is known as the Great Oxidation Event, but a study previously published in the top journal "Nature I'm Livin'it Geoscience" shows that the Earth's environment will likely return to the state it was 2.45 billion years ago in the future. There is no doubt that this is devastating for the vast majority of life.
In order to verify this statement, the researchers established a computer mathematical model as closely as possible to the actual situation. The simulation results showed that the radiation of the sun in the future will be stronger and brighter than it is now. The concentration of carbon dioxide will decrease. At some point in the future, both oxygen and carbon dioxide concentrations will drop, while methane concentrations will, in contrast, increase.
We know that plant photosynthesis is to absorb carbon dioxide and release oxygen. The reduction of carbon dioxide will also mean that oxygen will decrease. Once oxygen is reduced, some organisms that do not depend on oxygen will become active, like anaerobic methane bacteria. increase, the concentration of methane in the atmosphere will naturally rise.
Methane is a gas with a greenhouse effect more than 20 times higher than that of carbon dioxide. The increase in the concentration of methane will make the greenhouse effect more serious, and the concentration of oxygen and carbon dioxide will decrease. When the carbon dioxide level drops to a certain level, photosynthesis cannot proceed, so by then, some organisms will die. And if the oxygen finally disappears, only some simple creatures will be left on the earth.
It is predicted from the model results that the oxygen content of the earth will be enough for us to survive within one billion years, and if the oxygen content changes, such as a sharp drop, it will have a great impact on the earth's climate, there will be humid greenhouse conditions, and even surface water A large amount of loss, if it continues like this, more and more plants will die, and if the plants die, the photosynthesis will be insufficient, and the oxygen content will also decrease. Taken together, this situation will create a vicious circle, with less and less oxygen, back to the state it was 2.5 billion years ago. At that time, life on earth will only die without oxygen.
The consequences of a drop in oxygen levels are immeasurable, even in this day and age, and geoscientists at Georgia Tech have said so, and once this happens, we humans are too late to respond, of course This kind of dramatic change in the atmosphere does not happen 100%, but as long as it has a chance to happen, we must make predictions and precautions in advance. Although human civilization should have perished long ago after more than a billion years, but be optimistic, what if we can persist until then?
The search for a second earth is also related to scientists studying changes in oxygen content. A Japanese environmental scientist found through statistical calculations that the earth has a long lifespan, but the earth does not always have oxygen. For example, if the life of the earth is 1,000 years, the time of oxygen is only two or three hundred years, that is to say, the time span of the earth's oxygen-rich only accounts for 20~30% of the lifespan of the earth. Therefore, once the oxygen drops sharply or even disappears, only microorganisms can survive, and higher organisms will disappear, and we humans cannot avoid it, and we can only find another habitable planet.
The drop in oxygen levels will have very, very extreme consequences that we cannot measure today. If it really reaches that point, then moving to an alien planet may be the only way for us to reproduce. If the level of technology cannot reach the level of immigrating to an alien planet, it will face extinction.