AGW may not be the near term existential threat to our species that changing atmospheric partial pressures are.
All eukaryotes exchange O2 and CO2 with the atmosphere and ocean through the process of diffusion across bio-membranes.
The rate of cellular respiration is as much limited by the ability to offload waste as upload resource; this includes CO2 and O2.
A 30 % increase in atmospheric CO2 partial pressure since 1950 is a HUGE change in planetary chemistry.
For Animalia: Given Fick's Diffusion Laws and the same membrane constructs, a 30 percent increase in CO2 partial pressure would require that the CO2 concentration internal to the cell be sustained at a 30 percent higher concentration in order to maintain the same rate of diffusion and cellular respiration. The impact on human immune response and apoptosis now becomes an obvious path of inquiry.
Given Henry’s Gas Law, using ocean dissolved oxygen as a predictive proxy for the atmosphere, and extrapolating the rate of biosphere deoxygenation from a two percent decrease in ocean dissolved oxygen over that same time frame portends the extinction of our species over the relatively short term.
Is it possible the timeline of Animalia extinctions, including our own, will be defined by the photosynthesis deficit? A deficit that has been increasing at a non-linear rate since industrialization began.
Will rapidly increasing ocean hydrogen ion concentration (decreasing pH) will play a defining role in that timeline through its impact on phytoplankton and other phototrophs?
The positive economic feedback loop formed by hydrocarbon energy and armaments is clearly apparent. Unfortunately; the environmental destruction that positive feedback loop generates is leading our species to the dead end of extinction through conflict and asphyxiation. Nothing is to be gained until we relegate the Hydrocarbon- Armaments Cartels to the dustbin of history. Perhaps to be viewed in the same moral light as the slave trade.
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Changing Atmospheric Partial Pressures and Bio-diffusion.
Re: Changing Atmospheric Partial Pressures and Bio-diffusion.
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