The life span of the biosphere revisited

Abstract

A DECADE ago, Lovelock and Whitfield¹ raised the question of how much longer the biosphere can survive on Earth. They pointed out that, despite the current fossil-fuel induced increase in the atmospheric CO₂ concentration, the long-term trend should be in the opposite direction: as increased solar luminosity warms the Earth, silicate rocks should weather more readily, causing atmospheric CO₂ to decrease. In their model¹, atmospheric CO₂ falls below the critical level for C3 photosynthesis, 150 parts per million (p.p.m.), in only 100 Myr, and this is assumed to mark the demise of the biosphere as a whole. Here, we re-examine this problem using a more elaborate model that includes a more accurate treatment of the greenhouse effect of CO₂ (refs 2–4), a biologically mediated weathering parameterization, and the realization that C4 photosynthesis can persist to much lower concentrations of atmospheric CO₂(<10 p.p.m.)^5,6. We find that a C4-plant-based biosphere could survive for at least another 0.9 Gyr to 1.5 Gyr after the present time, depending respectively on whether CO₂ or temperature is the limiting factor. Within an additional 1 Gyr, Earth may lose its water to space, thereby following the path of its sister planet, Venus.