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Our Atmosphere Is Leaking Oxygen and Scientists Don't Know Why (gizmodo.com)
The Earth's atmosphere has been leaking oxygen and scientists don't know why. Researchers discovered that over the past 800,000 years, atmospheric oxygen levels have dropped by 0.7 percent. How exactly did they discover the leak? By observing ice cores from Greenland and Antarctica, which contain trapped air bubbles representing snapshots of our atmosphere over the past million-odd years. Gizmodo reports: By examining the ratio of oxygen to nitrogen isotopes within these cores, the researchers were able to pull out a trend: oxygen levels have fallen by 0.7 percent over the past 800,000 years, meaning sinks are roughly 2 percent larger than sources. Writing today in Science, the researchers offer a few possible explanations. For one, erosion rates appear to have sped up in recent geologic history, causing more fresh sediment to be exposed and oxidized by the atmosphere, causing more oxygen to be consumed. Long-term climate change could also be responsible. Recent human-induced warming aside, our planet's average temperature had been declining a bit over the past few million years. [Princeton University geologist Daniel Stolper] added that there could be other explanations, too, and figuring out which is correct could prove quite challenging. But learning what controls the knobs in our planet's oxygen cycle is worth the effort. It could help us understand what makes a planet habitable at all -- something scientists are rather keen on, given recent exoplanet discoveries. Stolper's analysis excluded one very unusual part of the record: the last 200 years of industrial human society. "We are consuming O2 at a rate a factor of a thousand times faster than before," Stolper said. "Humankind has completely short-circuited the cycle by burning tons of carbon."
where would the oxygen come from?
Please tell me you're kidding. Did you sleep through plant biology in high school?
-jcr
The only title of honor that a tyrant can grant is "Enemy of the State."
"A bit?" We have been in a continuous ice age for the past few million years. Even the more dire predictions of climate models barely take us back to the already fairly cold temperatures at the beginning of the Pliocene era.
We lost the combination to the air shield? Quick! Someone check their luggage! It might be the same combination.
We'll make great pets
Forests are responsible for a miniscule portion of oxygen production. The bulk comes from algae. There is not less algae in the world today. If anything, thanks to global warming, there is more.
Seven puppies were harmed during the making of this post.
"Forests are responsible for a miniscule portion of oxygen production"
Algae certainly is the main source, but the amount the forests produce definately isn't miniscule.
The amount of oxygen is our atmosphere so massive that the contemporary human population of seven billion would have to breathe for twenty thousand years to decrease its share in the atmosphere from 21% to 20%, without replacement. Of course, a mere century ago, the population was just 1.5 billion. Another century back, 0.9 billion. A thousand years back, about 0.25 billion. It's estimated that all the humans who ever lived numbered about 100 billion, that gives you something like a grand total of 0.2 percent of the current oxygen amount in the atmosphere having been consumed by all human beings who ever lived, if each of them lived sixty years on average. Perhaps cattle could multiply it by a factor of several.
Ezekiel 23:20
Because if not, there is no way I can see that "leaked" is the right word.
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'