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Greenhouse Effect with Carbon Cycling - Coggle Diagram
Greenhouse Effect with Carbon Cycling
Anthropomorphic Carbon Dioxide Release
Annual CO2 output of humans (2.94 billion tons) is only 8.5% of the CO2 emissions from fossil fuel combustion (34.7 billion tons)
The existence of people and livestock is removing carbon from the atmosphere at an incredibly slow pace
Large factories or corporations are more to blame for excessive carbon emissions rather than single people or households
Most of these emissions end up in one of three places: the atmosphere, the ocean, and in continental reservoirs
Carbon humans exhale is the same that was “inhaled” from the atmosphere by the plants we consume
This means that the less plants that are available to filter and "breath in" CO2 for humans, the more of it will linger in the atmosphere for humans to breath in
Greenhouse Effect with Resulting Energy Flow
Gasses let the sun light through Earth’s atmosphere but then trap it on the surface
Greenhouse gas emissions increased 70% between 1970 and 2004
The burning of fossil fuels like coal and oil has increased the concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2)
The trapping of sun light on Earth's surfaces can be attributed to the loss of ice at the poles decreasing the albedo effect
The greenhouse effect happens when certain gasses known as green gasses are trapped in Earth’s atmosphere
Carbon dioxide is the most important and the most prevalent of those gasses
Albedo Effect
Pale colors have an albedo of 100% meaning nearly all energy is reflected
Dark colors have an albedo of close to zero or zero which means little or no energy is reflected
As more dark colors are left behind in the place of light ones less energy is reflected
This means that ice at Earth's poles reflects sun energy back into space
However, as ice at the poles continues to melt less and less sun energy is reflected back into space meaning it stays trapped on Earth causing it to heat up
Earth heating up causes the ice to melt even more, ensuring the creation of a positive feedback loop which maximizes the damage caused by the melting of polar ice
Albedo is the amount of energy reflected by a surface
Impact of Temperature Increase on Climate Change
Rising temperatures worsen air pollution by increasing ground-level ozone smog
The removal of forests and other large bodies of vegetation decreases the amount of plants that can absorb CO2 from the atmosphere leading to its lingering on Earth's surface
The vegetation in the forests that was cut down ("killed") also decomposes which leads to the additional release of CO2 into the atmosphere
Higher temperatures are worsening many types of disasters like storms, heat waves, floods, and droughts
Because humans put more CO2 into the atmosphere than natural processes can remove the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere increases every year along with the temperature meaning these weather phenomenons will continue to get worse
Oceans are becoming more acidic which poses a serious threat to underwater life especially creatures with calcium carbonate shells or skeletons
The ocean is like a sponge that soaks up CO2 in the atmosphere, so the more CO2 that is trapped in the atmosphere the more of it the ocean will absorb and the more acidic it will become
The more acidic the ocean becomes the more organisms who fail to adapt die and decompose. Decomposition releases even more CO2 into the ocean and the atmosphere.