Japanese Scientists Predict Oxygen Collapse on Earth
Researchers from Toho University in Japan have revealed alarming insights about the Earth's future. According to their study, oxygen on Earth will disappear approximately one billion years from now, making the survival of current life forms impossible. These findings were derived using planetary data from NASA and have been published in the renowned scientific journal Nature Geoscience under the title “The Future Lifespan of Earth’s Oxygenated Atmosphere.”
The study was conducted by a team of scientists led by Assistant Professor Kazumi Ozaki of Toho University in Tokyo. They performed approximately 400,000 simulations to estimate the changes that would occur in Earth’s atmosphere as the Sun ages. This extensive analysis allowed them to predict when the Earth's oxygen levels will dramatically decline.
Causes of Oxygen Depletion
According to the study, as the Sun grows older, it will become progressively hotter and more luminous. This increase in solar radiation will significantly impact Earth’s atmosphere, leading to a series of transformations:
Evaporation of Water: Rising temperatures will cause rapid evaporation of water from Earth's reservoirs, increasing water vapor levels in the atmosphere.
Temperature Rise: The Earth's surface temperature will rise, creating conditions hostile to existing life forms.
Disruption of the Carbon Cycle: Excessive heat will weaken the carbon cycle, which plays a vital role in regulating atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO₂).
Loss of Plant Life: As the carbon cycle deteriorates, plants that produce oxygen through photosynthesis will die out, ceasing the production of oxygen altogether.
Atmospheric Changes
Once the carbon cycle breaks down, Earth’s atmosphere is expected to revert to a state resembling the primordial era—characterized by high methane levels and low oxygen. The study indicates that this condition would resemble the period before the “Great Oxidation Event,” during which photosynthetic organisms gradually enriched the atmosphere with oxygen. After reaching a critical tipping point, simulations predict that oxygen levels will rapidly deplete within a span of a few thousand years. Concurrently, methane concentrations will rise sharply. Under such conditions, complex aerobic organisms, including humans, will be unable to survive.
Earlier scientific models had estimated that life on Earth could persist for another two billion years. However, this new research advances the timeline for the end of oxygen production. Although the eventual extinction of life on Earth has long been theorized, Kazumi Ozaki emphasized that the exact timing and mechanism of oxygen loss had remained unclear. He stated that this latest study provides a more defined understanding through the use of advanced supercomputer simulations.