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NaTeWHO

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  1. On 8/25/2019 at 9:14 PM, freyguy said:

    It'll all balance out.  The earth will warm up a bit, and the algae/plankton in the oceans will flourish even more so and make up the 20% of oxygen supply we're losing to the amazon.

    Are you saying 20% of the oxygen we breath comes from the Amazon? It doesn't. Why do I keep seeing this and where did it come from? I swear people just make shit up and if it sounds somewhat plausible everyone believes it.

    I remembered hearing that all the oxygen in the Amazon was consumed by the Amazon from a show called "One Strange Rock," a docuseries about the Earth and its different systems. Well, the show was right.

    Scientific American

    Quote

    Fires in the Amazon rainforest have captured attention worldwide in recent days. Brazilian President Jair Bolsonaro, who took office in 2019, pledged in his campaign to reduce environmental protection and increase agricultural development in the Amazon, and he appears to have followed through on that promise.

    The resurgence of forest clearing in the Amazon, which had decreased more than 80% following a peak in 2004, is alarming for many reasons. Tropical forests harbor many species of plants and animals found nowhere else. They are important refuges for indigenous people, and contain enormous stores of carbon as wood and other organic matter that would otherwise contribute to the climate crisis.

    Some media accounts have suggested that fires in the Amazon also threaten the atmospheric oxygen that we breathe. French President Emmanuel Macron tweeted on Aug. 22 that “the Amazon rain forest—the lungs which produces 20% of our planet’s oxygen—is on fire.”

    The oft-repeated claim that the Amazon rainforest produces 20% of our planet’s oxygen is based on a misunderstanding. In fact nearly all of Earth’s breathable oxygen originated in the oceans, and there is enough of it to last for millions of years. There are many reasons to be appalled by this year’s Amazon fires, but depleting Earth’s oxygen supply is not one of them.

    Oxygen from plants

    As an atmospheric scientist, much of my work focuses on exchanges of various gases between Earth’s surface and the atmosphere. Many elements, including oxygen, constantly cycle between land-based ecosystems, the oceans and the atmosphere in ways that can be measured and quantified.

    Nearly all free oxygen in the air is produced by plants through photosynthesis. About one-third of land photosynthesis occurs in tropical forests, the largest of which is located in the Amazon Basin.

    But virtually all of the oxygen produced by photosynthesis each year is consumed by living organisms and fires. Trees constantly shed dead leaves, twigs, roots and other litter, which feeds a rich ecosystem of organisms, mostly insects and microbes. The microbes consume oxygen in that process.

    Forest plants produce lots of oxygen, and forest microbes consume a lot of oxygen. As a result, net production of oxygen by forests—and indeed, all land plants—is very close to zero.

     

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