Gaia Hypothesis

The Gaia hypothesis is an ecological theory that proposes that living and nonliving parts of the earth are viewed as a complex interacting system that can be thought of as a single organism. Named after the Greek earth Goddess, this theory postulates that all living things have a regulatory effect on the Earth’s environment that promotes life overall.

Lovelock’s initial “Gaia Hypothesis’

Lovelock defined Gaia as:

A complex entity involving the Earth’s biosphere, atmosphere, oceans, and soil; the totality constituting a feedback or cybernetic system which seeks an optimal physical and chemical environment for life on this planet. His initial hypothesis was that the biomass modifies the conditions on the planet to make conditions on the planet more hospitable the Gaia Hypothesis properly defined this “hospitality” as a full homeostasis.

Lovelock’s initial hypothesis, accused of being teleological by his critics, was that the atmosphere is kept in homeostasis by and for the biosphere. He suggested that life on Earth provides a cybernetic, homeostatic feedback system operated automatically and unconsciously by the biota, leading to broad stabilisation of global temperature and chemical composition.

With his initial hypothesis, Lovelock claimed the existence of a global control system of surface temperature, atmosphere composition and ocean salinity.

His arguments were:

  • The global surface temperature of the Earth has remained constant, despite an increase in the energy provided by the Sun.
  • Atmospheric composition remains constant, even though it should be unstable.
    Ocean salinity is constant.
  • Since life started on Earth, the energy provided by the Sun has increased by 25% to 30%[citation needed]; however the surface temperature of the planet has remained remarkably constant when measured on a global scale.
  • Furthermore, he argued, the atmospheric composition of the Earth is constant. The Earth’s atmosphere currently consists of 79% nitrogen, 20.7% oxygen and 0.03% carbon dioxide. Oxygen is the second most reactive element after fluorine, and should combine with gases and minerals of the Earth’s atmosphere and crust.
  • Traces of methane (at an amount of 100,000 tonnes produced per annum), should not exist, as methane is combustible in an oxygen atmosphere. This composition should be unstable, and its stability can only have been maintained with removal or production by living organisms.

Ocean salinity has been constant at about 3.4% for a very long time[citation needed]. Salinity stability is important as most cells require a rather constant salinity and do not generally tolerate values above 5%. Ocean salinity constancy was a long-standing mystery, because river salts should have raised the ocean salinity much higher than observed. Recently it was suggested[citation needed] that salinity may also be strongly influenced by seawater circulation through hot basaltic rocks, and emerging as hot water vents on ocean spreading ridges. However, the composition of sea water is far from equilibrium, and it is difficult to explain this fact without the influence of organic processes.

The only significant natural source of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) is volcanic activity, while the only significant removal is through the precipitation of carbonate rocks. In water, CO2 is dissolved as a “carbonic acid,” which may be combined with dissolved calcium to form solid calcium carbonate (limestone). Both precipitation and solution are influenced by the bacteria and plant roots in soils, where they improve gaseous circulation, or in coral reefs, where calcium carbonate is deposited as a solid on the sea floor. Calcium carbonate can also be washed from continents to the sea where it is used by living organisms to manufacture carbonaceous tests and shells. Once dead, the living organisms’ shells fall to the bottom of the oceans where they generate deposits of chalk and limestone. Part of the organisms with carboneous shells are the coccolithophores (algae), which also happen to participate in the formation of clouds. When they die, they release a sulfurous gas (DMS), (CH3)2S, which act as particles on which water vapor condenses to make clouds.

Lovelock sees this as one of the complex processes that maintain conditions suitable for life. The volcanoes produce CO2 in the atmosphere, CO2 participates in rock weathering as carbonic acid, itself accelerated by temperature and soil life, the dissolved CO2 is then used by the algae and released on the ocean floor. CO2 excess can be compensated by an increase of coccolithophoride life, increasing the amount of CO2 locked in the ocean floor. Coccolithophorides increase the cloud cover, hence control the surface temperature, help cool the whole planet and favor precipitations which are necessary for terrestrial plants. For Lovelock and other Gaia scientists like Stephan Harding, coccolithophorides are one stage in a regulatory feedback loop. Lately the atmospheric CO2 concentration has increased and there is some evidence that concentrations of ocean algal blooms are also increasing.


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