Earth's oxygen falling--desperate scientists seek answers

Professor Ralph Keeling of Scripps Institute is worried. In fact, he’s very worried.

According to the data Keeling has meticulously collected since 1989 the world is running out of breathable air–and the rate that it’s losing oxygen is now on the verge of accelerating.

Monitoring oxygen levels around the world is Keeling’s job. He’s very good at his job. And the data confirms that Earth’s oxygen supply is dwindling.

Keeling created the famous ‘Keeling Curve,’ a graph that extrapolates the current trend of the oxygen depletion in the atmosphere.

Less oxygen equals less life

A long time ago, the Earth was very rich in oxygen. The air contained such an abundance of the element–close to one-third of the atmosphere was oxygen–that animals and insects grew to gargantuan sizes. For instance, the ancestors of dragonflies once had four foot wingspans.

But now, due to overpopulation by humans, animals–even insect colonies–and deforestation, the oxygen in the air is become a diminishing resource.

Pollution has had a significant impact and events like the BP Deepwater Horizon Gulf disaster pumping up to a million times more methane into the ocean water serves only to speed up the already accelerating process.

Concerned scientists watching potential eruptions of super volcanoes–like the ones at Yellowstone or the Canary Islands–have already calculated the oxygen levels that would be displaced in our atmosphere should any of them erupt.

And the calculations’ sums are enough to cause those in the know chronically sleepless nights.

The numbers have been crunched and the stark results stare researchers in the face: climate change is the least of our problems.

As heliophysicists have been pointing out, much of the global climate change has been driven by significant changes in the sun. A decade ago many astronomers took notice of the sun acting in ways never quite seen in history.

Now the sun is expected to reach solar maximum during the next several years and some scientists are making dire predictions about the havoc that solar flares may cause with our high tech civilization.

Most, however, overlook the connection between solar activity and volcanic eruptions–and massive solar activity can lead to massive volcanic eruptions releasing trillions of cubic feet of methane, sulfur, CO2 and other gases that tend to displace free oxygen in the atmosphere.

A simple bleak equation distills the sum of their fears: less oxygen equals less life.

Warning signs mounting

Three major warning signs have emerged…

Complete article with scientific charts, graphs and full citations here.

© Copyright AYM Communications. 2010