Timeline for What if the ocean's salt level decreased by 50%?
Current License: CC BY-SA 3.0
21 events
| when toggle format | what | by | license | comment | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dec 13, 2016 at 21:16 | comment | added | kingledion | I don't see any evidence that most sea life would die out immediately. | |
| Aug 9, 2016 at 16:15 | comment | added | PoloHoleSet | Second answer does not address anything except adding a number for burning fuel for energy. It also grossly overstates the biomass % of humans vs all non-plant life, does not address natural oxygen-eating processes that go on all the time, biological and just chemical. Of course, if we had mass extinctions going on, that would also ease the respiration use by animals. In any case, my statement that you mischaracterize the answerer as claiming this would happen quickly still stands. | |
| Aug 9, 2016 at 16:05 | comment | added | Bakuriu | @AndrewMattson The second answer address these concerns and says that it would take 5 thousand years to consume all oxygen and more than 1 thousand years before we would be in trouble. Moreover it assumes that no oxygen production starts again, which is not the case in the scenario of the OP where we still have at least 20% if not 50% of oxygen consumption plus algae will regrow in a few decades. | |
| Aug 9, 2016 at 14:30 | comment | added | PoloHoleSet | If there was a mass extinction and collapse of the food chain in the ocean, with ripple effects onto land, would the resulting decomposition make the atmosphere toxic, not just due to CO2/oxygen ratios? Salinity aside, the question of what happens when the oceans get messed with is a pretty weighty one. I think our closest to near-complete extinction (over the span of millions of years) event is supposed to have started with algae extinction in the oceans. | |
| Aug 9, 2016 at 14:23 | comment | added | PoloHoleSet | @Bakuriu - from the link you offered, please reference the last answer. Answers assume or start from the assumption that the only oxygen use is from human respiration are, obviously, not anywhere close to a reasonable estimate. | |
| Aug 9, 2016 at 13:46 | comment | added | Bakuriu | @AndrewMattson There were previous questions about that. For example here but if you search for other website they all given figures in the thousands of years... and this is reasonable because there are trillions of tons of oxygen in the atmosphere that was built in millions of years. | |
| Aug 9, 2016 at 13:28 | comment | added | PoloHoleSet | Regardless, yes, the food chain collapsing would be much more immediate and severe, but the answer never pretends otherwise. | |
| Aug 9, 2016 at 13:10 | comment | added | PoloHoleSet | @Bakuriu - where do you get your timespan from? I've seen estimates that put it slightly over a decade. | |
| Aug 9, 2016 at 13:10 | comment | added | PoloHoleSet | @Perkins - One point I probably shouldn't have ignored is this, also - We not only need oxygen, we also need CO2 removed. We'd probably die of CO2 poisoning long before we actually ran out of oxygen, right? | |
| Aug 9, 2016 at 11:20 | vote | accept | Mithical | ||
| Aug 8, 2016 at 22:35 | comment | added | Oak | So the solution to global warming without going to war with China and Russia is... killing all sealife | |
| Aug 8, 2016 at 22:19 | comment | added | Bakuriu | @AndrewMattson The point is: algae will start to grow again in a few centuries. Dropping from 21% to 18% of oxygen level will taken a few centuries (more likely about 800/1 thousand years), and even at that level we would still be "fine", not in optimal shape but perfectly survivable. After that period algae will start to build oxygen again, so the worst case scenario is just a small dip in oxygen levels with pretty much insignificant consequences compared to the lack of food. | |
| Aug 8, 2016 at 22:16 | comment | added | Perkins | A human being in average physical condition needs about 2PSI partial pressure of oxygen to survive. 20% oxygen at 14.6PSI provides just under 3PSI of oxygen. You'll start to feel it when it gets down to about 14%. It probably won't drop that low though since higher CO2 levels do indeed spur plant growth, and the ability of plankton and algae to adapt to different salt levels is relatively rapid. CO2 level probably wouldn't affect the temperature much either since the wavelengths it can absorb are completely absorbed within 30 meters of the ground at present levels. | |
| Aug 8, 2016 at 21:24 | comment | added | Rob Watts | @AndrewMattson the page you linked to is poorly written. It first says "The minimum oxygen concentration for human breathing is 19.5 percent" then later says that's the lower end of the optimal breathing range. It says even later that somewhere around 10 percent is where you'd be falling unconscious from the lack of oxygen. | |
| Aug 8, 2016 at 20:13 | comment | added | PoloHoleSet | I see a big error in your big error. We don't have to deplete all the oxygen for animals to die. You are assuming that when oxygen level gets close to zero we can no longer breath. Once it dips slightly under 20%, for humans, we can't survive. If all those creatures and plant life in the ocean dies, what happens to all that biomass? Decomposition is a process that uses oxygen, and there would be decomposition going on at a massive, unprecedented level, along with all the animals using their normal oxygen. classroom.synonym.com/… | |
| Aug 8, 2016 at 14:35 | comment | added | Bakuriu | I see a big error in this answer: you didn't take into account the amount of oxygen that's in the atmosphere. Even if all oxygen producing organisms were destroyed right now, we still have 21% of the atmosphere which is oxygen and it will take thousands of years before we deplete that, and at the very least centuries before we start suffering from the low oxygen pressure. Your "Short of Breath" paragraph seems to describe an almost immediate situation, while absolutely no effect of that kind would be seen for a long time. | |
| Aug 8, 2016 at 7:59 | comment | added | Mithical | +1 - I think that you did the most to actually answer the question. But I'm holding off on the accept for a bit. | |
| Aug 8, 2016 at 7:55 | history | edited | IndigoFenix | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 82 characters in body
|
| Aug 8, 2016 at 7:43 | history | edited | IndigoFenix | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 3 characters in body
|
| Aug 8, 2016 at 7:37 | history | edited | IndigoFenix | CC BY-SA 3.0 |
added 181 characters in body
|
| Aug 8, 2016 at 7:25 | history | answered | IndigoFenix | CC BY-SA 3.0 |