Sustainable Ecology
Shane Partridge Pear Tree Twitter
In its early history, the Earth's oceans contained significantly more water than they do today. A new study indicates that hydrogen from split water molecules has escaped into space.
Although water covers 70 percent of the Earth's surface, water is actually a rare substance that represents just 0.05 percent of the Earth's total mass.
Water has nevertheless played a crucial role in the emergence of life on Earth. Without water, the Earth would in all likelihood be a dead planet.
The amount of water on the planet has not always been the same, however. A research group at the Natural History Museum of Denmark has discovered this by measuring how hydrogen isotope ratios in the oceans have changed over time.
"The water that covered the Earth at the dawn of time contained more of the lighter hydrogen isotope than the heavier hydrogen isotope, known as deuterium, than it does today,” says Emily Pope, a post doc, who has played a central role in the study.
“By examining how the ratio of these isotopes has changed, we have been able to determine that over the course of around four billion years, the Earth's oceans have lost about a quarter of their original mass."
"The Earth's climate has so far been a stable system. Current climate change, for which the human race bears much of the responsibility, is dramatic compared to the small variations that have taken place over time,” says Rosing.
“When we increase the amounts of greenhouse gases in this way, an imbalance results which perhaps can never be re-stabilised – a balance that has been the reason why life was able to come into being and flourish."
The researchers’ estimates for carbon dioxide agreed with others’ predictions and showed that, even if the world were to stop emitting carbon dioxide starting in 2050, up to 50 percent of the gas would remain in the atmosphere more than 750 years afterward. Even after carbon dioxide emissions cease, sea-level rise should continue to increase, measuring twice the level of 2050 estimates for 100 years, and four times that value for another 500 years.
Fossil Fuels have allowed Humans to exist beyond the Carrying Capacity of their Ecosystems. This is only a Temporary Existence based on a Monoculture of Susceptibility.