Satellite imagery has previously estimated that 20-40% of the Earth's surface is still in relatively good condition and has not been affected by significant human activity. However, a recent study has found that the problem is much worse than previously thought.
A new paper in Nature adds urgency to the fight against climate change. "Seventy-seven percent of land (excluding Antarctica) and 87 percent of the ocean has been modified by the direct effects of human activities," states a new paper in Nature.
As it turns out, nearly 95% of the Earth's surface shows some form of human modification, with 85% bearing evidence of multiple forms of human impact. This map by data scientist Hannah Ker outlines the extent of humanity's modification on terrestrial land ecosystems.
Study shows only 2-3% of Earth's land is ecologically intact.
90% of the Ocean Floor
Earth's ocean floor is a vast, alien world, which remains almost entirely unexplored by humans. While satellites have managed to map almost 100 percent of the ocean floor at low resolutions, more than 80% of it has yet to be explored or mapped at higher resolutions.
CANBERRA (Reuters) - More than 40 percent of Australia, an area the size of India, remains untouched by humans, making the country as critical to the world's environment as the Amazon rainforests, a study said on Wednesday.
Situated in Southern Africa, Namib is a vast expanse of sand and one of the oldest deserts on Earth. This desert has remained largely unexplored due to its hostile environment, with temperatures that can exceed 50˚C during the day and drop to near freezing at night.
The total land surface area of Earth is about 57,308,738 square miles, of which about 33% is desert and about 24% is mountainous. Subtracting this uninhabitable 57% (32,665,981 mi2) from the total land area leaves 24,642,757 square miles or 15.77 billion acres (43%) of habitable land.
Around 70 percent of the Earth's surface is covered by water, and the oceans hold about 96.5 percent of all Earth's water.
But just how much water exists on, in, and above our planet? About 71 percent of the Earth's surface is water-covered, and the oceans hold about 96.5 percent of all Earth's water.
Humans could be wiped out by a catastrophic asteroid strike, commit self-destruction with worldwide nuclear war or succumb to the ravages caused by the climate emergency. But humans are a hardy bunch, so the most likely scenario involves a combination of catastrophes that could wipe us out completely.
Humans have become the single largest threat to the very existence of other species, to our planet and, of course, to ourselves.
The path begins with the odds of your dad meeting your mom (1 in 20,000). This is multiplied by the chances of them staying together long enough to have kids (1 in 2,000), and so on... The probability of you existing at all comes out to 1 in 102,685,000 — yes, that's a 10 followed by 2,685,000 zeroes!
In 100 years, oceans will most likely rise, displacing many people, and it will continue to become warm and acidic. Natural disasters like wildfires and hurricanes will continue to be very common and water resources could be scarce. NASA is researching earth to make observations that will benefit everyone.
Humans impact the environment in a variety of damaging ways. Extracting natural resources, polluting air and waterways and razing wild landscapes are some of the most damaging examples industrial destruction.
Topping the chart is Russia with more than 15 million square kilometres of wilderness, identified as terrestrial or marine regions "free from human pressures, with a contiguous area of more than 10,000 square kilometres".
Earth will interact tidally with the Sun's outer atmosphere, which would decrease Earth's orbital radius. Drag from the chromosphere of the Sun would reduce Earth's orbit. These effects will counterbalance the impact of mass loss by the Sun, and the Sun will likely engulf Earth in about 7.59 billion years.
The toasty super-Earth 55 Cancri e is relatively close to Earth at 41 light-years away. It orbits very close to its star, whipping around it every 18 hours.
If everyone lived like the average inhabitant of the world, we would need 1.7 Earths. And if everyone lived like they do in… planet through how they live. For example, this includes what we eat, what things we buy and how we travel.
Earth's capacity
Many scientists think Earth has a maximum carrying capacity of 9 billion to 10 billion people.
Intensive agriculture, deforestation and overfishing have damaged ecosystems and threaten many plant and animal species that we – and other species – rely on. We've contaminated our air and water with harmful gases, heavy metals, plastics and other pollutants. A growing population could exacerbate the problem.
Morphological and isotope fossil evidence support the view that by 3.8-3.5 Ga our planet hosted microbial life leaving open the possibility, as suggested by fossil molecular clocks, that our planet became habitable and life emerged during its first 500 million years – the Hadean Eon.
In Russia all the northern provinces, from the Norwegian frontier to the Ural Mountains are only known superficially; we know here only the coast and the three principal rivers—the Onega, the Dwina, and the Petchora. The great Samoyede tundra remains quite unexplored.
Human habitation of the Amazon appears to date back thousands of years. However, major academic and scientific exploration efforts only began about 500 years ago, and much of the rainforest has still not been comprehensively mapped.
It is fair to say that a great deal of the Amazon is unexplored, with many areas of deep forest that outsiders have likely never stepped foot in, due to the thick density of the forest and its remoteness relative to major cities.