Paper 2) Fragile Environment Flashcards
Fragile Environment Countries
-The Philippines
-Japan
-Norway
-The Marshall Islands
-Iraq
The Philippines - fragile environment
-Hit by on average 20 typhoons each year
-prone to flooding
Japan - fragile environment
-Japan is located where four of the Earth’s tectonic plates converge
-home to about ten percent of the world’s active volcanoes
-Japan experiences around 1,500 earthquakes per year
Norway - fragile environment
Many of Norway’s glaciers are vulnerable to rising global temperatures. Glacial retreat.
The Marshall Islands - fragile environment
The Likiep atoll is home to around 400 people - highest point on the Marshall Islands (only 10m above sea level)
-vulnerable to rising sea levels
Iraq - fragile environment
-Result of climate damage, years of war, oil exploration forcing farmers off their land
-Salty water making its way back inland because of an increased number of dams
-most of Iraq’s marshland and fertile land has turned to desert
Fragile environment definition
Any natural environments/ biomes that are sensitive and vulnerable to change, particularly by human activity
Ecosystem definition
The interactions between the living things and the non living things in one locations
Biome definition
Made of many similar ecosystems
Abiotic factors
A non-living condition or thing, that influences or affects an ecosystem and the organisms in it
Biotic factors
A living thing that has an impact on another population of living things or on the environment
Why are fragile environments threatened
The growth of the world’s population today threatens to disturb the fragile balance of environments
-Humans have disturbed 90% of the Earth to some degree
Where do tropical rainforests tend to form
-around the equator because its hot and wet
-between the tropics of Cancer and Capricorn
-found in Central and South America, western and central Africa, western India, Southeast Asia, New Guinea, Australia
Biggest victims of global warming
-oceans
-they provide 50% of the earth’s oxygen
-ocean acidification - corals are at risk
-around 1 billion people rely on oceans for food
4 main theories to explain climate has changed in the past
-the sunspot theory
-the eruption theory
-the cosmic materials
-the orbital theory
The Sunspot Theory
The sun’s output is not constant and can fire out more solar energy towards the earth than other periods of time
-the earth has more solar energy from the sun, which makes the climate warmer
The Eruption Theory
Volcanic eruptions produce ash and sulphur dioxide gas. If they rise high enough, they will spread around the stratosphere by high level winds
-a blanket of ash and gas stops sunlight from reaching the Earth’s surface - cools the planet
-after the ash cloud has settled, greenhouse gases in the atmosphere will trap more heat and warms the planet
-haven’t been many super volcanic eruptions in the recent years when the climate has changed drastically
The Cosmic Materials
A large asteroid would blast millions of tones of ash and dust into the atmosphere. Would cool the climate as the dust and ash would block incoming sunlight
The Orbital theory
Changes in the way the Earth orbits the sun. Sometimes the Earth’s orbit is more of an eclipse or circular.
-Earth’s axis tilts and wobbles
-changes alter the amount of sunlight the Earth receives and where sunlight falls on the earth’s surface
-significant changes happens over thousands of years
Evidences of climate change
-Ice cores
-Pollen analysis
-Tree rings
-Historical sources
-Temperature records
Ice cores
From ice sheets that show different layers - have trapped air bubbles contain CO2 levels and O2 isotopes that correlate with each other
-There could be slight dating errors though
Pollen analysis
By analysing pollen - can see how ecosystems have changed in response to the climate - Pollen grains have been preserved in waterlogged sediment
-needs good preservation of pollen which doesn’t always happen
Tree rings
The thickness of rings in trees depends on the climate
-only very recent data (relatively) - covers such a small period of time
Historical sources
Pictures and written accounts
-cooler periods in time (ice over the Thames)
-warmer periods (Greenland accessible and lived in)
-before 1880 there are no reliable measurements
Temperature records
-earth is 0.8 degrees warmer in last 120 years
-nearly every one of the hottest years on record have been since 2000
-relatively recent data
Climate Change definition
May be a result of both human and natural processes. A large scale, long term shift in the planet’s weather patterns and average temperatures
Greenhouse effect definition
Natural processes where gases in the atmosphere trap heat from the sun, warms and keeps the planet habitable
Enhanced greenhouse effect definition
Human activity is changing the atmosphere and trapping more heat.
Global warming definition
A gradual rise in the global temperatures caused by human activities increasing the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.
What part of the world is expected to heat up the most?
The Artic Circle - warming at about four times the global average rate
-90% of the human population live in the Northern hemisphere
-Therefore there are more emissions and more heat becomes trapped
-Artic amplification - ice reflect heat, dark seawater absorbs heat. As ice melts, the dark water absorbs heat, and more ice melts
The greenhouse effect process
- the Sun’s energy reaches the Earth’s atmosphere
- some of is reflected back to space and some is absorbed and re-radiated by greenhouse gases.
