How Earth Systems work…….Nature, life on Earth and climate disruption
The amount of carbon absorbed by terrestrial and marine plants is 600 gigatonnes (120 Gt terrestrial, 480 Gt marine); the amount of carbon dioxide from the decomposition is 588 gigatonnes. Nature should be in balance, so the difference is due to the anthropogenic production of carbon, about 10 to 12 Gt as ‘C’. The figures do not include carbon sequestered, but the top numbers remain the same.
120Gt from https://lnkd.in/eSCRjYnc. also stated was 80 Gt carbon flux for marine life, but 80% of our oxygen comes from marine life so marine carbon flux must be 4 times terrestrial C flux. https://lnkd.in/eZ9YzqQT
There should be flexibility in nature to account for anthropogenic carbon, but there isn’t, because 80% of nature (terrestrial and marine animal life) has been destroyed since 1970. https://lnkd.in/d9QYs3Ee, and over 50% of terrestrial ecology and marine productivity. It is sheer madness, the harm that has been inflicted on the planet.
Marine life is the life support system for the planet. If there is a regime shift and we lose marine life, then basically the planet dies, along with most of humanity. It has happened many times in the past; hot house Earth and snowball Earth. Usually these changes take millennia, but anthropogenic input has accelerated the process.
The total biomass of life on earth is around 550 gigatonnes; the total biomass of life in the oceans is just 5 gigatonnes, and the biomass of humans is 0.5 gigatonnes. It takes 60 years for terrestrial biomass to double; it takes just 5 days for marine biomass to double because most life in the oceans is microscopic. The rapid doubling time allows a relatively small biomass of plants to regulate the atmosphere and control the climate.
The root of the food chain and life support system for the planet upon which we all depend is phytoplankton, of which there is less than 1 gigatonne. There are different species of phytoplankton, and we crucially depend apon coccolithophores and diatoms, of which there are only 0.5 gigatonnes.
The problem is that the oceans are now turning green (https://lnkd.in/emS-5vm8); we have lost more than 50% of the good phytoplankton, on which we all depend, due to pollution and ocean acidification, and they are rapidly disappearing to be replaced by dinoflagellates..
https://lnkd.in/eP3QBaWa
Really, we need to get a grip; the Southern Ocean, the most productive ocean on the planet, is covered by 80% of HNLC zones, high-nutrient, low-chlorophyll dead zones. At the current rate of decline the dead zones will cover 100% of the oceans in less than 20 years; the oceans will be dead or green with toxic dinoflagellates.
Feedback on these numbers is welcomed….
The semi-good news is that if the above is right… it can be fixed.’
www.seahorsepoint.org
Oil production by phytoplankton
July 1, 2026 · GOES foundation