Crisis on Oxygen and Water sources due to Rise in Temperature

Global warming poses a serious threat to the Earth’s sources of oxygen and water. The smallest organisms living in the oceans play a big role in the life cycle of the Earth. Our biological and environmental systems are dependent on these organisms. You will be surprised to know that many of these organisms also produce oxygen on a large scale for the earth. But the increasing acidification of the oceans due to climate change has made it difficult for these microbes. A crisis has arisen. These organisms that swim in the oceans are called ‘diatoms’. These are actually single celled algae that perform photosynthesis. About 20 percent of the world’s oxygen comes from this algae.
Researchers say that due to the acidification of the oceans, these organisms will face the crisis of silica (compounds of silicon and oxygen). They require silica to make their outer protective shell. They discovered that by the end of the next century, the acidification of the oceans would cause 26 percent of their numbers.It may be less. Jan Toscher, a marine biologist at the Geomar Marine Research Center in Kiel, Germany, said diatoms are one of the most important algae groups in the ocean. A decline in their numbers could lead to changes in the marine food cycle. This can also affect the carbon absorption capacity of the oceans. About 40 percent of the photosynthetic organisms in the ocean are diatoms. These are the main parts of the biological pump that takes carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and stores it in the depths of the ocean. Huh. This is the reason why these oceans have been successful in storing the excessive carbon dioxide generated by humans. But as our excess carbon dioxide dissolves in the ocean, it reacts to form more hydrogen ions (electrically charged molecules). This increases the acidity of the water. This changed chemical composition of the group has reduced the amount of carbonate in the ocean by 10 percent since industrialization.
The low carbonate content means that calcium carbonate will hardly form which is most is an extremely important compound for marine organisms. Organisms need calcium carbonate for their outer shell. If the amount of carbonate is too low, calcium carbonate will dissolve. At this time, the shells of some living beings have started dissolving. Diatoms were previously thought to be unaffected by ocean acidification because these bacteria use a completely different material for their unique transparent shells. It was also believed that increasing the amount of carbon dioxide would benefit them. This algae has its shell Silica particles floating on the surface of the ocean are used to make The new study brings to light something that had not been noticed in previous studies. That is, the dissolution of silica slows down as the acidity increases. Silica particles sink to the depths of the ocean. Silica deposited on the ocean floor is removed from the reach of diatoms. This affects the ability of these organisms to make shells.
A bad effect of increasing the temperature of the earth is also having a bad effect on the sources of clean water of the world. A new study has revealed Earth’s fresh water sources are evaporating faster and this rate is much higher than previous estimates. Evaporation of lakes plays a large role in Earth’s water cycle. This process has a great impact on our climate and weather models. Natural and artificial lakes with their shimmering waters adorn an area of about 5 million square kilometers of the Earth’s surface. They contain about 90 percent of our planet’s fresh liquid surface water. Gang Jao, an ecologist involved in this study, told that increased solar radiation due to warmer temperatures and changes in cloud cover has made the skies thirstier than ever. Go was at Texas A&M University during this study. Large areas of exposed water due to reduced ice cover have also provided an opportunity for the sky to trap water molecules. All these factors contribute to the rapid release of water stored on land into the atmosphere. Previous estimates of this water transfer depended on the evaporation rate, but these figures were based on the weight of the lake’s water do not represent a reduction in quantity.
Other factors, such as the freezing and melting cycles of lakes, also affect this rate. Because of this dependence on local environmental conditions, a reliable measure of evaporation must be calculated independently for each lake. Jao and his colleagues did the same for some 1.4 million lakes around the world. They used information from satellites about monthly water losses from 1985 to 2018 and for each of these lakes, the evaporation rate, surface Collected data on changes in area, ice duration and heat storage. They found that the evaporation of the lake over the long term is 150 cubic kilometers per year, which is 15.4 percent higher than previous estimates. So the sky is drinking 3 trillion (one trillion = 1000 billion) liters more water every year than before.
The researchers also found that the contribution of artificial reservoirs to this evaporation is proportionally more. Huilin Gao, an environmentalist involved in the study, said that from the global perspective,The total evaporation from water sources can be more than the combined use of domestic and industrial water. However, very few lakes and reservoirs have reliable data on evaporation. Gao and team have produced a dataset about global lake evaporation volume. He urged the water management bodies and the scientific community to make use of it after making it public. This dataset can help decision making in reservoir management in the context of increasing drought events worldwide. With the help of this dataset The scientific community can better understand the role of reservoirs in all of Earth’s systems, including global weather forecasting, floods and droughts.