June 23, 2026 feature

How long can plants survive on Earth? New model suggests up to 2 billion more years

by David Appell, Phys.org, edited by Sadie Harley, reviewed by Robert Egan

Editors’ notes

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Vegetarians need not worry yet—plants will be on Earth for a long time to come. But not forever. The sun will ultimately determine the long-term existence of life on Earth. Its total energy output, called luminosity, has been increasing over epochs and eons by about 10% every billion years—determining much of Earth’s surface temperature. This will continue for billions of years in the future.

The greenhouse effect is the second-largest influence on temperature, determined largely by the concentration of carbon dioxide (CO₂) in the atmosphere. Its future is less certain, and that has implications for the long-term survival of plants.

CO₂ is naturally removed from the atmosphere by silicate weathering—a chemical reaction of rocks, rainfall and CO₂ that creates calcium and bicarbonate, which ultimately drain down rivers and settle on the bottom of the ocean as calcium carbonate.

Through the geologic cycle, this carbon ultimately reappears in the atmosphere via volcanic eruptions. At present, about 130 million tons of carbon is removed by silicate weathering every year, while humans now emit about 90 times that amount.

In a new paper published in Journal of Geophysical Research: Atmospheres, Jacob Haqq‐Misra and Eric Wolf of Blue Marble Space in Seattle determined the future of plants by looking at the long-term future of solar luminosity and CO₂ levels in the atmosphere, using a three-dimensional general circulation climate model and considering whether future silicate weathering will be strong or weak.

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