...Polar ice caps are sheets of ice close to the North and South poles. They are formed because they are in high-latitude regions, which results in less exposure to the heat from the sun, causing the temperatures to be very cold. Average temperatures at the North and South poles have begun to get hotter because of environmental changes, like global warming and gas emissions, causing ice caps to melt and often times, break apart. (What is a Polar Ice Cap, 2015) Why did I choose this topic? This topic is interesting for me because it proves that we, as humans, have destroyed our earth. It shows that even though we talked as a whole about fixing the global issues of our earth that we created, we didn't act fast enough to fix it, and now we are facing those consequences....
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...Cause-effect relationships: climate change, ozone layer depletion, ultra violet radiation and biodiversity changes Ultraviolet radiation and ozone layer In recent years, along with the general deterioration of the environmental situation, climate change, pollution of the atmosphere and the aquatic environment, a problem has arisen associating with the effects on the human health of excessive ultraviolet irradiation. The global process of degradation of the Earth's ozone layer, one of the manifestations of which is the formation of "ozone holes", led to the disruption of the usual mode of natural UV radiation. The sun is the main source of optical radiation coming to the surface of the Earth from space. In quantitative terms, ultraviolet radiation...
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...323 EEN 100:ENVIRONMENTAL EDUCATION E35/CE/KER/10801/2013 OZONE LAYER Ozone layer is a deep layer in the stratosphere, encircling the earth that has large amounts of ozone in it. Ozone is a colourless gas found in the upper atmosphere of the earth that is formed when oxygen molecules absorbs ultraviolet, and undergo a chemical reaction known as photo dissociation or photolysis. In this process, a single molecule of oxygen breaks down into two oxygen atoms.The free oxygen atom[o],then combines with an oxygen molecule[02] and forms a molecule of ozone[03].The ozone molecule in turn absorbs ultraviolet rays between 310-200nn[nanometer] wavelength and thereby prevent these harmful radiations from entering the earth’s atmosphere. Ozone layer was discovered in 1913 by the French physicists Charles Fabry and Henri Buisson,and its properties were explored by the British meteologist G.M.B Dobson,who developed a simple spectrophotometer[Dobsonmeter]that could be used to measure stratospheric ozone from the ground. Ozone layer acts as a shield for the earth from very harmful UV rays.If we damage the ozone layer anymore then we would put ourselves at an increasingly greater risks because we cannot survive without the ozone layer.Exposure to UV rays causes skin cancer,damage crops and harms ocean life,e.g polar shifting, that is,a complex event that occurs when uneven melting of ice occur_a major hole is now over Antarctica,where there are ice shitfs.If this melts,it could increase...
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...Ozone Layer Depletion: Effects and Causes of Ozone Depletion Ozone is a colorless gas found in the upper atmosphere of the Earth and formed by the action of ultraviolet radiation on oxygen. Ozone forms a layer in the stratosphere, which protects life on Earth from the harmful effects of ultraviolet radiation. Ads by Google Olay Total Effects 1 Bottle Fights 7 Signs of Ageing, Try Olay Total Effects Today! www.olay.in Today, one of the most discussed and serious environmental issues is the ozone layer depletion, the layer of gas that forms a protective covering in the Earth's upper atmosphere. Ozone is formed when oxygen molecules absorb ultraviolet photons and undergo a chemical reaction known as photo dissociation or photolysis, where a single molecule of oxygen breaks down to two oxygen atoms. The free oxygen atom (O), then combines with an oxygen molecule (O2) and forms a molecule of ozone (O3). The ozone molecules, in turn absorb ultraviolet rays between 310 to 200 nm wavelength and thereby prevent these harmful radiations from entering the Earth's atmosphere. In the process, ozone molecules split up into a molecule of oxygen and an oxygen atom. The oxygen atom (O) again combines with the oxygen molecule (O2) to regenerate an ozone (O3) molecule. Thus, the total amount of ozone is maintained by this continuous process of destruction and regeneration. Ozone layer depletion first captured the attention of the whole world in the later half of 1970 and since then, many discussions...
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...Global warming is the rise in the average temperature of Earth's atmosphere and oceans since the late 19th century and its projected continuation. Since the early 20th century, Earth's mean surface temperature has increased by about 0.8 °C (1.4 °F), with about two-thirds of the increase occurring since 1980. scientists are more than 90% certain that it is primarily caused by increasing concentrations of greenhouse gasses produced by human activities. A greenhouse gas (sometimes abbreviated GHG) is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect.The primary greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere are water vapour, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone. The causes of increasing greenhouse gases are: Burning fossil fuels, thus releasing into the atmosphere carbon that has been safely stored for millions of years by burning coal, oil and natural gas for transport and electricity. An enormous demand for electricity. The growing population of the earth all want cars, refrigerators, air-conditioning and a double garage. Most electricity is generated by burning coal. A constant and growing demand for red meat. Cattle belch out methane, a toxic greenhouse gas, much more dangerous than carbon dioxide. More and more forests and bushland, which absorb carbon dioxide from the air, are being cut down so more cattle can graze. A reduction in the planet's ability to remove...
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...1. Discuss spread of communicable diseases and the environment’s mediating role. More people are at risk of communicable diseases than at any other time on history. Communicable diseases are worldwide problem requiring worldwide attention. Communicable diseases can weaken the strength of a nation's resources. In developing nations this poses an even greater threat. Diseases are threatening the economic stability of many developing nations. 50,000 people die everyday from infectious disease. Global development strategies are needed to reduce communicable diseases. In the future, communicable diseases are likely to grow in the United States. For the United States cannot ensure safety for its citizens without noting other diseases in the world. If the United States investigates other outbreaks, they can learn how to best prevent and treat diseases prior to them coming to the country. Numerous agencies are involved in efforts to fight communicable diseases. Just recently, a task force that was chaired by a number of agencies (CDC, FDA, NIH) developed a blueprint for agencies to develop programs to fight disease. United States agencies are also providing advice and support to the WHO, NGOs, banks and foundations. There are numerous ways to combat these diseases. Improved education and awareness of the disease is essential in preventing it. NGOs can provide training in these areas. Another way of prevention is improved living conditions. Poor sanitation, overcrowding and malnutrition...
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...Introduction Since the indefinite commercial whaling moratorium was introduced in 1986, the whaling nations have killed around 15,000 whales between them. At the time of writing, the Japanese whaling fleet has just returned from Antarctic waters where a further 300 or so minke whales have been killed for so called ‘research’, in open defiance of world public opinion and the IWC which has never validated the Japanese programme. The meat from those dead whales will end up on sale in Japanese restaurants and on supermarket shelves. Japan is not only defying the global moratorium on commercial whaling, it is killing whales in a sanctuary agreed by the IWC in 1994. Japan has ‘recruited’ many countries to the IWC to support the resumption of commercial whaling using foreign aid packages. If the ban is lost it will be a disaster for whale conservation efforts. This report presents the many reasons why the ban on commercial whaling must be maintained and properly enforced. We cannot wipe away the tragic history of commercial whaling, but we can, and must, prevent its repetition. The Natural History of Whales Whales belong to the order of mammals known as Cetacea. There are about 80 species of cetaceans, including all the dolphins and porpoises, as well as the ten so-called ‘great’ whale species, which have borne the brunt of commercial whaling. Cetaceans are believed to have evolved from land mammals, which adapted to an aquatic existence about 50 million years ago. They are superbly...
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...| Midterm Review Project | Chapter 4-14 | | | 1/16/2014 | AP ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE CHAPTER 4 EARTH SYSTEMS AND RESOURCES I. The Nature of Ecology a. Ecology is the study of connections in nature i. Ecology is the study of how organisms interact with one another and with their non-living environment ii. An organism is any form of life. The cell is the basic unit of life in organisms. b. Population i. Members of a species interact in groups called populations. ii. Species of the same population live together in a particular place or habitat. c. Communities and Ecosystems i. A community consists of populations of different species living and interacting in an area ii. An ecosystem is a community interacting with its physical environment of matter and energy. II. The Earth’s life support systems a. The different spheres of life-parts of Earth that support life systems. i. The Earth is made up of interconnected spherical layers that contain air, water, soil, minerals, and life. i.i Atmosphere: thin envelope or membrane of air around the planet. Its inner layer is the troposphere; it extends only about 17 km above sea level. i.ii Stratosphere: subsequent layer; its lower portion contains ozone to filter out the sun’s harmful...
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...Beyond COP21: What does Paris mean for future climate change policy A response paper highlighting the future issues of major environmental disasters and the backdrop of what the future looks like. ------------------------------------------------- ------------------------------------------------- Sushrut S. Vaidya (20155042) Introduction: The changes caused by the terror of the human realm revealed itself to the world at the COP21 (21st Conference Of the Parties), known otherwise as the 2015 United Nations Climate Change Conference that was held from the 30th of November to the 11th of December 2015. Although people’s awareness of climate change and perceptions about its effects vary at the regional and national levels, the overall change patterns illustrate how climate change is truly a global issue. The issues discussed during the conference were related to what the Earth faced because of climate changes, the result of which was the regulation of global temperatures upto 2 degrees Celsius as compared to those of pre-industrial levels. All the 196 parties that attended the conference signed the Paris Agreement, the document responsible for the regulatory measures, for the very first time. It was with the highest concern that the motion for a global change was put forth. History of COP and the start of the concern towards climate change: The history of global concern towards climate changes dates back to the late 60’s and early 70’s. In response to growing...
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...According to the Population Division of the United Nations, world population reached 6,500 million in 2005 and will continue growing by more than 76 million per year, United Nations estimates indicate that by 2050 there will be between 7,700 million and 10,600 million, being the most likely projection of 9,100 million inhabitants. The availability of arable land and increased efficiency in food production from land can reach their limits. The oceanographic conditions, climate and its effect on soil quality and various human uses to determine crop land will be unable to provide food for the ever growing human population. On the other hand, it is recognized, therefore, that marine and freshwater aquatic, covering over 70% of the planet's surface, are a reservoir of food substances, industrial and biomedical importance, and also a source of degradation and dilution of anthropogenic and industrial waste (Solar, 2002). Statistics of the United Nations Organization for Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO, 2002) indicate that the production of food from the aquatic environment is close to 137 million metric tons, of which almost 31% came from farming activities. The FAO also estimates that to meet the needs of the human population of 2025, total production should increase to 165 million metric tons. This significant increase can not come from the catch of wild species without causing serious damage to marine ecosystems, lakes and rivers. Consequently, the increase in the production...
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...Abstract 3 Part Two: Overfishing Summary 5 Part Three: Overfishing Stakeholders 9 Part Four: International Implication 14 Part Five: Conclusion and Recommendations 15 References 18 Introduction The human needs and wants are satisfied by the existed natural resources in our environment. Simply, we are totally dependent on natural resources which sustain our lives. Everything we have used and using is made of natural resources, or raw materials and energy obtained from our environment. Although, those resources are discrimination as renewable and non-renewable resources, the natural resources sustainability is endangered by human behavior consuming. Thus, human should consider the environmental aspect when it comes to satisfying their needs and wants. Exceeded consumption of the natural resources will lead to breaking down the environment cycle and destroying those natural resources. One of those threatened natural resources is fisheries resources. Marine fisheries are supplying a major protein source to the world’s population, and they are supporting an industry that worth over $85 billion annually . Fisheries resources are facing one of the biggest issues that threaten it globally; overfishing. During the 20th century, the fishing expanded rapidly to the global scale as a result of motorized vessels, inexpensive oil, refrigeration, increasingly global commodity markets, and heavy government subsidies to increase fleets. Because...
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...Global Warming And Its Effects On The Coastal Areas of Bangladesh [pic] [pic][pic] GLOBAL WARMING: Global Warming is the rise in the average temperature of the Earth’s atmosphere, including the surface air and oceans. In simple words global warming is when the Earth heats up. It is caused mainly due to increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere. The greenhouse gases, include carbon dioxide, nitrous oxide, methane, water vapor, traps heat and light in the Earth’s atmosphere, which increases the temperature. Today global warming is considered as one of the major environmental issues, which threatens to disrupt the basic balance of the environment and cause large scale destruction. The Greenhouse Effect: [pic] There are certain gases that raise the temperature by trapping the sun’s heat and energy. The Earth’s average temperature would have been about 60Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. colder if it weren’t for these gases. These gases are referred to as “greenhouse effect” because of the way they help to keep the Earth warm. The greenhouse effect makes the Earth suitable for all living things. The Earth might have been freezing or it might also have been burning hot if the greenhouse effect did not occur. However, the presence of too many such gases can cause the Earth to get unusually warmer. The plants would not be able to take such heat and eventually they would have died. The scarcity of plants would cause animals to die...
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...Brandon Parezo Environmental Science Research Paper November 23rd, 2011 Maldives The country of Maldives is officially known as the Republic of Maldives, or as many people know of it as the Maldive Islands. It is located in the Indian Ocean, island nation, and the way that it is formed is by a double chain of twenty-six atolls (1). An “atoll” is a coral island that surrounds a “lagoon” partially or completely (1). The major surrounding countries near Maldives are Sri Lanka and India, Maldives is about 430 miles from Sri Lanka and about 250 miles from India (1). The major type/s of topography for Maldives is the fact that it is a cluster of around 1,200 small islands (2). One of the islands consists of just the capital, Male, and another one of the islands serves the purpose of the nation’s airport. Besides those two islands, basically every island serves a single purpose. They have an island just to store their fuel, one for their dump yards, 199 of them for population, and 80 islands that consist of major tourist locations (2). For the Maldive Islands there really only one major language spoken, Dhivehi (1). It is a Indo-European language and it spoken by at least 350,000 people on the islands (1). The present-day script that is used on the islands is called Thanna and what is quite interesting about this is that it is written from right to left, unlike us who go from left to right (1). According to the UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural...
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...“The longer you live the longer you should live” –Wiley “Evolution’s a bitch” –Wiley “Suckers are good to eat” –Wiley WHAT HAS EVOLUTION DONE FOR ME What has evolution done for me • Agricultural crops and animal breeding for the past 8,000 years • With the discovery of methods to reconstruct evolutionary relationships there is been a vast increase in the relevance of evolutionary biology to human society. Reconstructing Phylogenies • 1859-1950- No coherent empirical methods • 1950-1966- Emergence of Phylogenetic Systematics • Phylogeny by discovery of the order of evolutionary innovation Ribotyping • Fingerprinting or sequencing RNA • Many diseases have unknown causes • However, diseased tissues can be ribotyped. (Wiley Death Fish) • This process involves extracting DNA from diseased tissues and then sequencing the DNA that codes for rRNA. • If a disease agent such as a bacteria is present, then we will get ribosomal DNA sequences from the host (you) and the bacteria (the infection agent). Ribotyping: Phylogeny matching • Once we have the rDNA sequences, we can plug them into a sequence matrix of all life and see where our unknowns appear on the tree of life. Our Food Chain • Some products are easy to identify, but others are not. • A slab of fish fillet from a sea bass looks like a slab of sih fillet from a farmed Asian catfish. • But the sea bass costs $10/pound while the Asian catfish...
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...Introduction Ultraviolet (UV) radiation reaching the Earth’s surface has increased significantly over the last 20 years from increased ozone depletion. UV radiation is a component of sunlight that is divided into three parts: UVA (320-400nm), UV-B (280-320nm) and UVC (less than 280nm) [25]. Wavelength determines the transmission of UV radiation through the Earth’s atmosphere. UVC is completely absorbed by the atmospheric gases; UV-B radiation is absorbed by ozone layer and only a small amount reaches the Earth’s surface while UVA radiation is hardly absorbed. The decreased UV-B-filtering capacity of the ozone layer due to pollutants like chlorofluorocarbons (CFC), methylbromide and halons has increased the amount of solar UV-B radiation that plant life is exposed to [2]. A thorough understanding of the UV-B radiation levels is especially important in agriculture as its effects on crop species is essential to design crops that can produce food and other raw materials for the increasing world population. Increased UV-B exposure has the potential to damage DNA, generate reactive oxygen species (ROS) and disrupt cellular process in many plant species [10]. Specifically, the primary deleterious effects of increased UV-B occur on the efficiency of the photosynthetic apparatus and the reduction of photosynthetic genes. Damage to the thylakoid membrane and destruction of chlorophyll (Fig. 6) along with the decrease in the amount of photosynthesis are also attributed to over exposure...
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