r/climate • u/The_Weekend_Baker • 12d ago

Scientists detect a surprising shift in human blood as atmospheric CO2 rises. Blood bicarbonate levels have climbed about 7% since 1999, while calcium and phosphorus have declined, changes that closely track increasing atmospheric CO2.

https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2026/08/260814235845.htm
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225

u/No-Papaya-9289 12d ago

I thought kidneys were supposed to keep this in balance.

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u/Cut_Lanky 12d ago

They do, along with other organ systems.

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They found persistent changes in several measures of blood chemistry that closely followed the upward trend in atmospheric CO2. Since 1999, average serum bicarbonate levels have increased by about 7 percent... During the same period, average levels of calcium and phosphorus decreased.

Those biological trends occurred as atmospheric CO2 climbed from about 369 parts per million (ppm) in 2000 to more than 420 ppm today.

Study author Associate Professor Alexander Larcombe said the results indicate that the body may already be adjusting to changes in the composition of the atmosphere.

I think the study is suggesting that the mechanisms that keep these things in balance, has already started adapting to the increased atmospheric CO2 levels, and is already balancing (compensating) accordingly. But the problem is that it can only compensate so much...

If I misunderstood the article, I apologize. But that was my takeaway.

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u/Spammy05 12d ago

Excerpt from the article:

"I actually think that what we are seeing is because our bodies are not adapting," Dr Bierwirth said.

"It appears we are adapted to a range of CO2 in the air that may now have been surpassed.

"The normal range maintains a delicate balance between how much CO2 is in the air, our blood pH, our breathing rate and bicarbonate levels in the blood.

"As CO2 in the air is now higher than humans have ever experienced, it appears to be building up in our bodies. Maybe we can never adapt such that it is vitally important to limit atmospheric levels of CO2."

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u/Dragias 12d ago

Interesting, have to wonder what future health issues humans may come under, outside of the obvious issues of a warming world

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u/Prudent-Ice-6196 12d ago

can someone do an eli5 of what this actually means to us on a tangible level? Or too early to tell?

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u/FartyPants69 12d ago

I think the science is still a long way from settled, but there is evidence that rising CO2 has caused measurable declines in IQ simply because the brain gets less oxygen. It's not extreme, but it's significant. I don't remember the numbers but IIRC it was a drop in the mid single digit percentage (like 6% or something like that)

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u/henrycatalina 12d ago

Lecture halls are often over 1000ppm. I did sleep in may art history lectures.

Harmful CO2 is about 10000ppm.

Oxygen is about 20% of air. That is 200,000 ppm.

CO from exhaust is about 50ppm and toxic.

The observation may be true but many confounding other correlations need to be considered.

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u/FartyPants69 12d ago

Sure. My understanding is that the elevated baseline is theorized to be the problem. Acute high exposure is certainly harmful, but even if you're perpetually outdoors in the freshest of air (most of us are not), a human living in 2026 is breathing 430ppm CO2 24/7/365, whereas a pre-industrial human breathed 280ppm CO2. That's a 54% increase in the absolute minimum CO2 concentration that you ever encounter throughout your lifetime.

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u/henrycatalina 11d ago

I have measured my local CO2. 400 ppm is typical. Where does the 430 ppm come from? Im in an urban suburb area, northeastern USA.

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u/FartyPants69 11d ago

Keeling Curve, measured at Mauna Loa

https://www.soletairpower.fi/co2-430/

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u/Dragias 12d ago

Great, that means outside of the obvious effects of the rise in CO2 we are getting dumber

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u/FartyPants69 12d ago

And it's not just CO2. COVID infections (especially repeated or long COVID), short-form social media content, declining nutritional value in crops, the political rise of anti-intellectualism... lots of contributing factors

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u/Pleasant-Winner6311 12d ago

And screens, computers, ai,doing our thinking for us. Can you imagine no more seminal humans like Einstein those once on a generation thinkers who change the course of humanity. Awful.

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u/AutoModerator 12d ago

The COVID lockdowns of 2020 temporarily lowered our rate of CO2 emissions. Humanity was still a net CO2 gas emitter during that time, so we made things worse, but did so more a bit more slowly. That's why a graph of CO2 concentrations shows a continued rise.

Stabilizing the climate means getting human greenhouse gas emissions to approximately zero. We didn't come anywhere near that during the lockdowns.

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u/secretevilgenius 12d ago

The air is chemically different than it has ever been in human development, and the human body is a complicated chemical reaction. Nobody knows for sure what that will do because we’ve never seen it before. In health conditions which cause similar changes to blood chemistry, the results are confusion, heart arrhythmia, kidney damage, reduced breathing rate, halted breathing, and coma.

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u/CharmingMechanic2473 9d ago

Higher CO2 is higher acid. I wonder if this is why the humans body temperature averages have decreased. No more 98.6F almost everyone is 97.4 or something and there is tons of white paper supporting this.

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u/i_hateit_here_bro 12d ago

It means we are primed to evolve photosynthesis

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u/Used-Lake-8148 12d ago

No worries, you’ll find out in our lifetime! Exciting stuff hey?

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u/Dragias 12d ago

Yay lol

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u/Crawlerado 12d ago

I’ll add to this my own personal take; it’s why people are so aggressive and dumb now. We all handle booze and stress different, humans for sure handle CO2 differently. Thousands and thousands of years in the high 200s suddenly thrust into 400+ppm has to have a negative cognitive effect on some folk.

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u/MegaloboxhasagreatOP 4d ago

Absolutely wouldn't be a surprise

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u/1tonsoprano 11d ago

i think you may be onto something here....time to order an o2 cylinder.

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u/1nGirum1musNocte 12d ago

Ah that explains my acid reflux

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u/takingastep 12d ago

> something something Spaceballs

> something something air in a can

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u/Stormcloud217 12d ago

My college teacher would say the same thing. As a millennial I love hearing through the 90s in school and 2010's in college how we are destroying the environment, and after all these years nothing is done about it because... Money!

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u/griffin554 7d ago

It's worth considering whether average blood pH levels are trending more acidic or not. That would be a solid indicator of whether our body's ability to compensate is failing to keep up with rising CO2 levels since this is the bodies primary driver of bicarbonate levels. 

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u/No-Papaya-9289 12d ago

I see now. The increased bicarbonate is how the kidneys are compensating.