Dr Mae-Wan Ho thinks that the amount of atmospheric oxygen is getting less and the depletion rate is accelerating. To say Dr Ho is well qualified in biophysics would be an understatement. Published by the Institute of Science in Society last year, her research points out the danger of putting one step in front of another without knowing where you are going, a feature of humanity’s insatiable curiosity which has brought many benefits for mankind but also may problems.

Virtually all measures to prevent climate change are measures to reduce the amount of carbon dioxide being emitted into the atmosphere. We have been measuring atmospheric carbon dioxide for fifty years (now about 380 parts per million) but have been measuring atmospheric oxygen for only twenty years (now at 209,460 parts per million). You might expect atmospheric oxygen to decline, as a proportion of the atmosphere, as carbon dioxide levels increase, but that the decline would be less than the increase in carbon dioxide and as carbon dioxide as a proportion of atmospheric gas is very tiny, the reduction in the proportion of atmospheric oxygen would be smaller.

In fact atmospheric share of oxygen has been declining in the past few years by two to four times the increase rate of atmospheric carbon dioxide, and oceans have also experienced a greater than expect fall in oxygen levels. Dr Mae’s calculations and methodology can be examined at  http://www.i-sis.org.uk/O2DroppingFasterThanCO2Rising.php

They take into account the different molar exchange rates of each gas and the known variations in time and space of the exchange processes.

There are a number of reasons put forward for the increasing decline in oxygen levels. In truth these are speculations. The most convincing argument is that humanity are changing the land use so quickly by deforestation and planting of quick cash crops, like palm, soya, pasture for cattle and by planting quick growing trees for biomass fuel, that these are creating conditions for oxygen depletion. If this is right then if we are to address climate change we must also address oxygen depletion, because simply sequestrating carbon dioxide as a sole climate policy ignores the need to prevent the loss of oxygen.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions and good intentions alone are not enough to solve the problem of climate change. 

 

Originally published at:  http://robertkyriakides.wordpress.com/2010/07/15/oxygen-depletion-and-climate-change/