Other
Scientific paper
May 2002
adsabs.harvard.edu/cgi-bin/nph-data_query?bibcode=2002agusm.b42a..06k&link_type=abstract
American Geophysical Union, Spring Meeting 2002, abstract #B42A-06
Other
0315 Biosphere/Atmosphere Interactions, 0325 Evolution Of The Atmosphere
Scientific paper
The Gaia hypothesis of Lovelock attempts to describe the emergent effects of life on Earth system properties and functioning at the planetary scale. It states that the resulting effects of life are such that it maintains habitable, or even optimal, conditions throughout Earth?s history. But what is habitable, or optimal? What is good for one species, may be bad for another. Problems associated with this important, but ill-defined hypothesis make it difficult to test. In order to address these problems and make the concept of Gaia testable, I give a precise definition of terms. Since carbon is the basic building block for life on Earth, I define the benefit of environmental conditions for life by their effect on the long-term mean global gross uptake of carbon by the biota. With this definition, environmental conditions which are more favorable to life or enhance life are those that lead to a higher value of GPP. Based on these definitions, I put forward four null hypotheses, describing increasing beneficial effects of life on the conditions of Earth, ranging from an ?Antigaian? to an ?optimising Gaian? null hypothesis. I use climate model simulations of a ?Desert World? and present day conditions to evaluate these hypotheses. I list some indications for rejection of all but one hypothesis, and conclude that life has indeed a strong tendency to affect Earth in a way which enhances the overall benefit, that is, carbon uptake.
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