In a new study featured in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, the researchers aver that “[T]he Earth will be identifiable as an inhabited planet for nearly half the total lifetime of the Sun, an important point to consider in the search for life on extrasolar planets.”

The new study suggests that ‘the Earth could be habitable for another 2.3 billion years, extending previous estimates of life’s horizon by more than 1 billion years.’ If this assumption is true for Earth, then it may also apply to other planets that exhibit some form of biosphere. The possibility could also ‘increase the chances that earthly civilization finds extraterrestrial life by doubling the percentage of time that planets could be inhabited.’

The scientists behind the study speculate that ‘Earth’s biosphere can actually change the weight of the atmosphere.’ The group bases their assumption on the fact that “the human activity which is influencing the atmosphere has a time scale of hundreds of years or thousands of years. Even if the biosphere is really controlling the climate, it’s not on that time scale.”

Previous calculations that peg the Earth’s life at about a billion years from now assert that ‘over the next hundreds of millions of years, the sun will continue to get brighter until eventually, Earth becomes too hot to inhabit.’

The new study suggests that these previous calculations missed out on the ‘role of atmospheric pressure in regulating the temperature of the planet on astronomical time scales.’ It has already been proven that ‘atmospheric pressure is a key variable in the overall greenhouse-gas effect because it determines how much infrared radiation greenhouse gases absorb.’

Translated to layman terms, that means the higher the atmospheric pressure, the greater the absorption of greenhouse gases. Thus, the absorbed infrared radiation would be causing higher temperatures in the earth’s atmosphere. This is more commonly known as global warming. On the other end is the possibility of lower atmospheric pressures that would have the opposite effect.

If Earth’s biosphere can actually change the weight of the atmosphere, as these scientists suggest, then mankind does have a hand in the longevity of his planet.

Man is, indeed, the architect of his own fate?

Via WIRED