Oxygen Types That Damage Crops In Extreme Weather Conditions

Oxygen is best known as a life-giving gas without which life as we know it, would not be possible.

- Prof Charlie Reinhardt

Apart from the oxygen (O2) humans and animals inhale when they breathe and that which plants release during photosynthesis, the air we are exposed to comprises several other forms of oxygen, namely ozone (O3), nitrous oxide (NOx) and carbon dioxide (CO2).

These three gases all contribute to the greenhouse effect and are therefore members of the group of ‘greenhouse gases’ that accelerate global warming.

The fundamental problem

The release of natural greenhouse gases is not the fundamental problem that threatens the sustainability of the earth’s climate as we know it. Instead, it is the impact of the Anthropocene – the epoch that marks the changes humanity has wrought on the earth’s natural systems – that poses a threat.

Ozone is mostly brought to our attention when we hear reports on the state of the ozone layer over the poles (Nature News, 2020). It plays a protective role in the stratosphere and forms part of the earth’s atmosphere that lies above the troposphere. It extends to approximately 50km above the earth’s surface.

The troposphere is the lowest level of the earth’s atmosphere. It extends from the earth’s surface to a height of approximately 10km, with its thickness varying from approximately 7km at the poles to 28km at the equator.

However, relatively little is known about ozone that can injure plants.

The effect of ozone