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There is less and less oxygen in the Earth's atmosphere

09.10.2016

Geologists from Princeton University (USA), led by Assistant Professor John Higgins and Professor Michael Bender, analyzed for the first time data on the dynamics of oxygen and carbon dioxide content in the Earth's atmosphere over the past 800 thousand years, and came to the conclusion that it has been gradually declining all this time, and in the last 100 years it has begun to fall sharply.

Princeton scientists used an innovative technique based on the analysis of air bubbles from different layers of the ice caps of Greenland and Antarctica. He showed that over the past 800 thousand years, O2 in the earth's atmosphere has decreased by 0,7% compared to the current level.

By geological standards, this is a normal speed, but there is one important detail - a decrease of 0,1% has occurred in just the last 100 years. Obviously, the reason is human activity, namely the burning of fossil fuels, which absorb oxygen and release carbon dioxide into the atmosphere.

Just another interesting aspect is connected with carbon dioxide. The study showed that its global level throughout these 800 thousand years remained generally unchanged, despite the cyclical fluctuations associated with ice ages. But in recent decades, as you know, the content of CO2 in the atmosphere is growing rapidly, and has already reached a dangerous level.

What is the conclusion from this? Obviously, when the change in the composition of the atmosphere occurs so quickly, the planet does not have time to compensate for it by "packing" it into silicates.

“Earth can handle additional carbon dioxide when it has thousands or millions of years to do so. But now humanity is releasing CO2 into the atmosphere so quickly that silicate absorption mechanisms cannot keep up. Humans have made long processes on Earth very fast,” Higgins concluded.

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