Human Influence on The Enviorment Flashcards
Whats eutrophication?
occurs when the environment becomes enriched with nutrients, increasing the amount of plant and algae growth to water bodies.
How does eutrophication result in aquatic life dying?
Excess nitrates can be washed from farm fields and into waterways, plants then use these nitrates to build proteins and grown extremely quickly. The sudden growth results in not enough space availible for the plants which leads to them dying from not carrying out photosynthesis.
Decomposers then consume the excess dead plant material and respire aerobically. This results in the aquatic animals not receiving oxygen and dying.
Whats the green house affect?
The way in which heat is trapped close to Earth’s surface by “greenhouse gases” such as methane, CO2, water vapor and nitrous oxide.
What affect does greenhouse gases have on the earth?
They cause global warming, as average Earth temperatures increase which results in melting of polar ice caps that may ultimately lead to floods that kill and destroy, leading to extinction of animal and plant species.
What are CFCs?
Chlorofluorocarbons are chemicals that were found in aerosols and fridges which contribute to the decay of the ozone layer.
Whats acid rain?
Sulfuric acid that fall to the ground from the atmosphere in many forms. Sulfur impurities in petrol release sulfur dioxide when burnt which makes sulfuric acid.
Whats carbon monoxide?
A gas formed by the incomplete combustion in car engines. It combines irreversibly with hemoglobin in red blood cells making the red blood cells less efficient at carrying O2.
