Climate Change: Falling Oxygen Levels May be More Dangerous Than Flooding

First Posted: Dec 01, 2015 11:19 AM EST

Falling oxygen levels caused by global warming could be a greater threat to the survival of life on Earth than flooding. Researchers have taken a closer look at the gas composition of our planet Earth and have found that organisms in our world's ocean could experience some major risks.

"Global warming has been a focus of attention of science and politics for about two decades now," said Sergei Petrovskii, one of the researchers, in a news release. "A lot has been said about its expected disastrous consequences; perhaps the most notorious is the global flooding that may result from melting of Antarctic ice if the warming exceeds a few degrees compared to the pre-industrial level. However, it now appears that this is probably not the biggest danger that the warming can cause to the humanity."

In this latest study, the researchers developed a new model of oxygen production in the ocean that takes into account basic interactions in the plankton community, such as oxygen production in photosynthesis, oxygen consumption because of plankton breathing and zooplankton feeding on phytoplankton.

The researchers found that an increase in the water temperature of the world's oceans to about six degrees Celsius could stop oxygen production by phytoplankton by disrupting the process of photosynthesis.

"About two-thirds of the planet's total atmospheric oxygen is produced by ocean phytoplankton-and therefore cessation would result in the depletion of atmospheric oxygen on a global scale," said Petrovskii. "This would likely result in the mass mortality of animals and humans."

The findings reveal that when it comes to global warming, flooding may not be the only danger to watch out for.

The findings are published in the journal Bulletin of Mathematical Biology.

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TagsClimate Change, Climate, Climate Models, Climate Warming, Ocean, Phytoplankton, Plankton, Phytoplankton bloom