The global oxygen budget and its future projection

Atmospheric oxygen (O₂) is the most crucial element on earth for the aerobic organisms that depend on it to release energy from carbon-based macromolecules. This is the first study to systematically analyze the global O₂ budget and its changes over the past 100 years. It is found that anthropogenic fossil fuel combustion is the largest contributor to the current O₂ deficit, which consumed 2.0 Gt/a in 1900 and has increased to 38.2 Gt/a by 2015. Under the Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) RCP8.5 scenario, approximately 100Gt (gigatonnes) of O₂ would be removed from the atmosphere per year until 2100, and the O₂ concentration will decrease from its current level of 20.946% to 20.825%. Human activities have caused irreversible decline of atmospheric O₂. It is time to take actions to promote O₂ production and reduce O₂ consumption.