
A study by Kazumi Ozaki and Chris Reinhard suggests that Earth’s oxygen-rich atmosphere will last about 1.08 billion years. The atmosphere will then rapidly deoxygenate, dropping to 1% of its current oxygen levels. This will make the atmosphere similar to Earth’s early atmosphere before the Great Oxidation Event.
The study used a combined biogeochemistry and climate model to examine the lifespan of Earth’s oxygen-rich atmosphere. The model was run more than 400,000 times, varying model parameters.
The researchers say that the lack of oxygen will kill most life on Earth.
And scientists have predicted that in future, Earth’s atmosphere will revert to one that’s low in oxygen. A study, published in Nature in 2021, describes the scenario when it will happen. That time is still a billion years away, but when the change come, it is going to happen fairly rapidly.
Earth will also be uninhabitable in a billion years because the planet will be too hot to support life. The sun will run out of energy and destroy itself, along with the inner planets. This will cause the Earth’s surface to become too warm for liquid water to exist. The planet will also be too hot to maintain oceans on its surface.
Some models predict that Earth will be habitable for at least 1.5 billion years. However, the planet will be uncomfortable for humans, but livable in some areas just below the polar regions.
Earth’s atmosphere loses about 90,000 tons of atmospheric gases each year. This is a small fraction of the Earth’s atmosphere, which weighs about 5.5 quadrillion tons.
Earth’s atmosphere loses about 3 kilograms of hydrogen per second and 50 grams of helium per second.
Earth’s atmosphere won’t disappear completely in the near future because gravity binds most of it to the Earth
Yes, oxygen levels are slowly decreasing on Earth. The main cause is the burning of fossil fuels, which consumes oxygen. Other causes include deforestation, which reduces oxygen production, and pollution.
Over the past 800,000 years, the amount of oxygen in the atmosphere has decreased by 0.7%. In the global ocean, oxygen levels have declined by 2% since the 1950s. Models estimate that global oxygen concentrations may decline by as much as 7% by the year 2100.
While the decline won’t directly affect humans in terms of the air we breathe, certain ecosystems are much more impacted, especially aquatic ones. Dead zones are low-oxygen, or hypoxic, areas in the world’s oceans and lakes.
Scientists believe that Earth will remain habitable for at least 1.75 billion years, and possibly up to 3.25 billion years. However, this is subject to various factors, including disasters like nuclear holocausts, asteroids, and large igneous provinces.
Some say that Earth will last for another 4 billion to 5 billion years, long after it becomes uninhabitable for humans.
The oldest rocks with fossil evidence of life on Earth are 3.8 billion years old. These rocks can be found in Africa, Australia, and Greenland.
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