How Does the Ocean Affect Oxygen on Earth? - 10 Facts

The oxygen on this planet is directly linked to the ocean and its marine life. On this episode, we bring you 10 shocking facts about oxygen and the ocean.

10. Earth
Planet Earth’s weight excluding the core is made up of 49% oxygen, when including the core 30% of its total mass is oxygen. While abundant with oxygen the earth’s mantle doesn’t release free oxygen into the atmosphere, the only way free oxygen is released is from photosynthesis.

9. The Source
25% of all oxygen comes from plants, trees and vegetation on land the remaining, shocking right all those untouched mountain ranges full of trees combined only produce one quarter of the air we breathe. 75% comes from phytoplankton, algae, cyanobacteria and kelp in the ocean.

8. Atmosphere
The air we breathe is only contains 21% oxygen, 78% is nitrogen and the remaining 1% is made up of argon, carbon dioxide and methane, you know cow farts. Two-thirds of the weight of living creatures comes from oxygen, but aren’t human’s mostly made of water? True, the oxygen in water weighs 88.9% of its total mass.

7. Phytoplankton
71% of the world is covered in water, with that said 74% of all species on earth are aquatic. Why is this important? Because 75% of our air comes from the ocean but how? Primarily whales and phytoplankton. See phytoplankton are microscopic marine plants, you know those big plooms of turquoise streaks you see on world images from space, they are the primary food source for fish.

6.Whales
Whales are in integral part of the air supply on earth. Whales consume, phytoplankton, fish and krill, to do so they must swim to the deep depths of the ocean to find a meal, the vertical currents whales produce brings nutrients from the ocean floor upwards, feeding everything in the ocean at different levels.

5. Mixing it Up
There are 2 primary ways those nutrients get off the ground though, 1 as already mentioned is from whales. Whales are gigantic and produce huge amounts of current. The Cuvier’s Beaked Whale is the deepest diving mammal on earth followed by the Sperm Whale. They dive over 7,000 feet or 2000 meters below the ocean’s surface in search for food. Now in comparison to nature itself, all the tidal motion, waves and wind combined only accounts for 50% of ocean water being mixed up the remaining 50%, you guessed it, comes from whales.

4. Fishing
Fishing by humans has drastically reduced the amount of fish in the ocean but even more so, fisherman hate whales because they eat fish. So fisherman will kill whales in hope to catch more fish but by doing so they’d actually drastically affected the marine life cycle.

3. Depleted Oxygen
In 50 years the oceanic oxygen levels has dropped by 2% while this might not sound like much, most marine mammals won’t be able to survive in the ocean once it drops by 7% which is projected to be the case by 2100. 96% decline of bluefin tuna in the ocean. You heard me right where there used to be 100 bluefin tuna, now there is 4.

2. Farming
2.7 Trillion fish are caught from the ocean every year, 40% or almost 1.1 trillion fish are discarded as bycatch. A large amount, around 30% of fish are ground up into pellets and fed to cows, chickens and pigs making them the world’s largest oceanic predator.. But what does this have to do with oxygen or the ocean. Currently there are 500 nitrogen dead zones around the world, this is definitely not the same world grandpa grew up in.

1. Pollution
80% of pollution in the ocean comes from land based activities. The primary offenders include, oil from oil spills, toxic chemicals from air pollution to chemical dumping, fertilizers which come from lawns and farms, garbage like plastic, balloons, bottles, shoes, etc. and sewage whether it be from animal agriculture or urban sewage. Even jackets made of synthetic materials have been shown to break off small particles of plastic in washing machines and end up in fish in the ocean.

http://www.fao.org/3/a-i5555e.pdf
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/jun/20/microfibers-plastic-pollution-oceans-patagonia-synthetic-clothes-microbeads

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Intro music thanks to Machinmasound:
Rallying the Defense:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ruPk4RD19Nw