Greenhouse gases, carbon dioxide review, 3

BY JOSE PALU-AY DACUDAO

BEFORE the 1980s, most biologists, botanists, and ecologists in the loop for this topic agreed that the Earth’s flora was on CO₂ starvation levels. And that with the rise of CO₂ levels, so did plant growth worldwide.

Since the 1980s, the Earth’s plant-covered surface, based on NASA satellite imaging, has surged up by 20%. Arctic Ocean phytoplankton primary productivity has increased tremendously up to 150% (although this may be partially due to the melting of Arctic Ocean ice cover, which has allowed plankton more territory to grow in. Ditto for the melting icy tundra areas.).

Previously desert and arid areas of the world now exhibit plant growth, and in other parts where that were previously covered by greenery, plant growth has become denser. Hundreds of individual studies since the late 1800s until today have also shown conclusively that plants grow faster when subjected to a high dessert atmosphere. Moreover, the increase in atmospheric CO₂ has been less than its projected increase based on computation from fossil fuel burning.

The popular theory why this is so is that the CO₂ starved plants of the world are happily gulping down the excess CO₂ produced by humanity in photosynthesis. In brief, 6 moles of Carbon Dioxide and 6 moles of water are transformed to one mole of glucose or another common monosaccharide (cellulose is composed of multiple units of monosaccharides linked together) and 6 moles of Oxygen. Thus, photosynthesis is also responsible for the free Oxygen diatomic molecule in our atmosphere.

6 CO₂ + 6 H₂O → C₆H₁₂O₆ (glucose)

To be strictly technical about it, the fixation process in photosynthesis first produces two simple sugars that each contains three Carbon atoms. These in turn are commonly combined into glucose or other monosaccharides that contain six Carbon atoms, or other shorter four Carbon sugars. These simple sugars are later converted into Carbon-rich organic matter. For convenience, this and future articles will generally refer to the product of photosynthesis as C₆H₁₂O₆ (glucose).

This presence of free Oxygen, without which we become braindead in four minutes will be explained in Carbon Dioxide’s past history. Figures will be rounded off for easier comprehensibly.

In our Universe, atoms are proportioned into almost 98% hydrogen and helium, 1% oxygen, 0.5% carbon, and another 0.5% into the rest of the elements. You’d expect any planet to have huge amounts of oxygen and carbon. Oxygen reacts strongly with silicon, magnesium, aluminum, and calcium, forming solid silicate minerals, and so its atoms typically make up half of a planet’s crust and mantle. On the other hand, rocky planets like the Earth severely lack carbon. There are two hypotheses for this. (To be continued)/PN