What if Earth's oxygen level doubled!
The Earth's atmosphere is made up of about 21% oxygen. The air we breathe is actually nitrogen - about 78%.
The thing about oxygen is that not only is it an essential gas for life as we know it is alive, but it is also a gas that facilitates all types of burning and combustion. So would your birthday candle shine twice if the oxygen of the Earth increases by 42%? Maybe. But there are big implications here!
Our human lungs have fully adapted to our current atmospheric setting. Just because oxygen is necessary for respiration does not mean that it is too much improvement. In fact all life forms on our body and on Earth are finely designed to supply 21% oxygen to the air. But it was not always so.
Scientists have discovered that around 300 million years ago, oxygen levels were up to 30% during prehistoric times. During that time, insects were huge! This meant spiders were eagle-shaped. And the lizards were dinosaur shaped! Scary, right? If the Earth's oxygen level would double, at 42%, these creepy crawlies would be bigger than before.
but do not worry! Double oxygen ensures that you can outrun all these scary spiders! Due to the availability of more oxygen to the lungs, your stamina will be greatly increased by the breath you take. Oxygen-rich blood will pump through your veins, fueling your muscles with energy, while increasing blood circulation will give you more agility and focus!
But don't be so happy yet! Wait until the extra oxygen starts weighing you down! With the doubling of oxygen, the air density will also increase significantly. This means that we will all experience an increase in air pressure and our ears will pop more often! But this is not the only problem.
While running away from all the giant creepy crawlies, we have to watch out for something called tox oxygen poisoning. Too much oxygen in your bloodstream will cause harmful oxidation in your cells, which will lead to their death. So with double levels of oxygen, deaths due to fatigue and exhaustion will be more common than deaths from illnesses!
A higher oxygen concentration will lead to a thicker atmosphere, which will scatter more sunlight. So the sky will look beautifully blurred but you can feel the overall temperature drop.
Going back to our birthday candle, one of the most important changes would be an increase in the rate of fire and combustion. The forest fire will spread very fast and the flames will increase much more than normal. Meanwhile, plants will get less carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, slowing photosynthesis. Most of the green vegetation of the earth can be replaced by mosses and fungi.
We really should consider ourselves lucky with such a well balanced environment. Very little oxygen and harmful radiation from space would have burned everything. Too much oxygen and all the terrible possibilities mentioned above can become a reality. We are extremely lucky to get the right amount of oxygen in a way and we must do everything we can to maintain it that way
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