*Horrifying thought that the atmosphere on Mars is mostly Carbon. In this age of Corvin 19 we have partly began to appreciate the value of Oxygen ' In your Section on Breathe in the Air ...you mention the idea of thinner air from Everest to Kilimanjaro, etc and its impact ......*
*I have three questions for you * *One: we can calculate how much of carbon the earth got in the past from tree rings ....so if that is the case it is possible to deduce how much of oxygen planet earth was producing every millennium * *Two: is the present "climate change" actually the decline in Oxygen content ....Dire warning have been sounded by the CC experts some even suggest we cannot reverse it...as an optimist I feel that this is a Malthusian fringe * *Three: when the sun heats and increases the humidity levels, does the oxygen increase even slightly ???* *Finally: the lack of Oxygen has a psychological impact ...Decades ago an English Postgraduate seconded to the Bureau where I was Director decided to climb Kilimanjaro ...she did not go very far .....she came back a very different person ....she was a demographer even that weiged her down. She returned to Europe ...I lost touch of her/ * *Grandolfo* *In Makongo Juu ...where the air is clean and fresh in the lush evergreen trees but because of the road construction the noise and the dust....* *in * *Breathe in the air, the higher you fly* It's a good bet you haven't paid a lot of attention to the density of air. At sea level, it's about 1.2 kg/cubic metre, meaning a cubic metre of air weighs about 1.2kg. You've probably seen references to how air gets "thinner", or less dense, at altitudes. This is why travellers to Ladakh, for example, are advised to take a day or two to "acclimatize" there. The thinner the air, the harder it is to take in enough oxygen to function normally. Of course, this is even more of a factor for climbers trying to summit Mt Everest. For at the peak of that mountain, a cubic metre of air weighs only about 400 grams - about a third of the sea-level figure. Not only must climbers take the time to acclimatize as they get ever higher up the mountain, they often carry oxygen along, to help them breathe at those heights. To understand all this, start with how much air you take in as you breathe: about eight litres a minute. At sea level, that much air weighs about 10 grams. 20% of that is oxygen, or about two grams. So just normal everyday functioning needs 2gm of oxygen per minute of normal breathing. At the top of Everest, you'll need three minutes, or much deeper breathing, to get that much oxygen into you. Hard work. No wonder most climbers carry tanks of oxygen as they near the top. Imagine, then, reaching a place where the air around you is so thin that a cubic metre weighs just 18 grams. Not over a kilogram, not 400gm, but a measly 18gm. If you're still on Earth, the eight litres you take in each minute will weigh just 0.15gm, of which 0.03gm is oxygen. How hard will you have to work to get your regular 2gm/minute dose of oxygen? No amount of acclimatization will help you survive in air that thin, even if the air was pure oxygen. You'd have to carry and breathe from oxygen tanks all the time. There is actually a place where the air density is this low, though it's nowhere on Earth. This is Mars, and in case the thinness of its air wasn't obstacle enough, there's an added complication. 20% of the Earth's air is oxygen, but only 0.16% of the air on Mars is. .........will inhale only 0.00024gm - 0.24 microgram – of oxygen. The truth is that you'll be inhaling almost pure carbon dioxide, because that's what makes up 95% of Martian air. MY GOODNESS WE ARE BREATHING SODA WATER WITHOUT OXYGEN .... GRANDOLFO BETTER STOP ...I AM BEGINNING TO FEEL DIZZY JUST THINKING
