QUESTION 3

The greenhouse effect is the process in which the emission of infrared radiation by the atmosphere warms a planet's surface. The name comes from an incorrect analogy with the warming of air inside a greenhouse compared to the air outside the greenhouse. The greenhouse effect was discovered by Joseph Fourier in 1824 and first investigated quantitatively by Svante Arrhenius in 1896. (1)

When sunlight reaches the surface of the Earth, some of it is absorbed and warms the surface. Because the Earth's surface is much cooler than the sun, it radiates energy at much longer wavelengths than the sun does, peaking in the infrared at about 10 µm. The atmosphere absorbs these longer wavelengths more effectively than it does the shorter wavelengths from the sun. The absorption of this longwave radiant energy warms the atmosphere. (1) And If global warming continues at its current pace, by 2100 Earth could be up to 8 degrees Fahrenheit warmer than it is today. (2)

BIBLIOGRAPHY

(1) http://www.wikipedia.com/

no copyright


(2) http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,188940,00.html

© 2008 FOX News Network, LLC. All rights reserved. All market data delayed 20 minutes.

QUESTION 2

A watershed is a ridge of high land dividing two areas that are drained by different river systems. (1) And erosion is the carrying away or displacement of solids (sediment, soil, rock and other particles) usually by the agents of currents such as, wind, water, or ice by downward or down-slope movement in response to gravity or by living organisms. Erosion is distinguished from weathering, which is the process of chemical or physical breakdown of the minerals in the rocks, although the two processes may be concurrent. (2) Streams are usually very small while rivers are larger. And lakes can also very in size.

There are about 326 million cubic miles of fresh water enough to fill the United States with a lake 90 miles deep. 70 percent of fresh water is locked in ice caps though. While less than 1 percent of the world’s freshwater is readily accessible. Though the Earth is covered in most parts with water, 72 percent of surface area, but 97 percent of the water is salty and not suited for drinking. (3) The Water quality in both ground Water and surface systems is impacted by land use decisions because of how much waste people are dumping into the rivers lakes and streams. And because of how much waste people are dumping in landfills or because of fertilizers being used to much.

FINAL EXAM

QUESTION 1

The geosphere consists of the core, mantle and crust of the Earth.
The atmosphere contains all of the Earth’s air and is divided into troposphere, stratosphere, mesosphere, thermosphere and ionosphere. (1)
The hydrosphere consists of water in all forms (3) extending from the depths of the sea to the upper reaches of the troposphere where water is found. Ninety-seven percent of the hydrosphere is found in salty oceans, and the remainder is found as vapor or droplets in the atmosphere and as liquid in ground water, lakes, rivers, glaciers and snowfields.
The biosphere is the collection of all Earth’s life forms, distributed in major life zones known as biomes: tundra, boreal forest, temperate deciduous forest, temperate grassland, desert, savannah, tropical rainforest, chaparral, freshwater, and marine. (1) It also includes air, land, surface rocks, and water, within which life occurs. (2)








Although the four systems have their unique identities, there is substantial interaction between them. Environmental scientists study the effects of events in one sphere on the other spheres. For example, a volcanic eruption in the geosphere may cause profound direct and indirect effects on the hydrosphere, atmosphere and biosphere. (1)
I’ll also be able to use this information in the future when I go to college. Because I want to be an anistist, and to be that you need a degree in biological science or a nursing degree before you can go on further in college.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

(1) http://www.csun.edu/science/books/sourcebook/chapters/8-organizing/files/earth-systems-interactions.html

copyright 2007 Norman Herr, Ph.D.-Professor of science education-California State University, Northridge



(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biosphere


no copyright Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc


(3) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hydrosphere


no copyright Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc

WES C

In the wes c project we learned about storms. I didn't know much about storms other than that they were clouds and rain that usually came with thunder and lightning, but I found out that they were much more than that. (1) A storm is any disturbed state of an astronomical body's atmosphere , especially affecting its surface, and strongly implying sever weather. It may be marked by strong winds, rains, thunder and lightning. (2) Warm air is less concentrated than cool air, so warm air rises within cooler air, similar to hot air balloons. Clouds form as warm air carrying moisture rises within cooler air. As the warm air rises, it cools. The moist water vapour begins to condense. When the moisture condenses, this releases energy that keeps the air warmer than its surroundings, so that it continues to rise. If enough insibility is present in the atmosphere, this process will continue long enough for cumulonimbus clouds to form, which support lightning and thunder.All thunderstorms, regardless of type, go through three stages: the cumulus stage, the mature stage, and the dissipation stage. Depending on the conditions present in the atmosphere, these three stages can take anywhere from 20 minutes to several hours to occur.
(2) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thunderstorm

(1) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Storm

Airflow diagrams showing three stages of a thunderstorm life cycle

WES D

When my partner and I did the WES D project we had some prior knowledge about the coriolis effect. In the WES D project we learned about the coriolis effect.The Coriolis effect is most apparent in the path of an object moving longitudinally. On the earth an object that moves along a north and south path, or longitudinal line, will undergo apparent deflection to the right in the Northern Hemisphere and to the left in the Southern Hemisphere. There are two reasons for this: first, the earth rotates eastward; and second, the tangential velocity of a point on the earth is a function of latitude (the velocity is essentially zero at the poles and it attains a maximum value at the Equator). So if a cannon was fired northward from a point on the Equator, the projectile would land to the east of its due north path. This occurs because the projectile is moving eastward faster at the equator than was its target farther north.

http://abyss.uoregon.edu/~js/glossary/coriolis_effect.html

Activity 6

For three weeks we have had to write down information about the weather. Everyday we recorded the high and low temperature, the barometer, the wind speed, the wind direction, the sky coverage, if there was any precipitation and the amount of the precipitation. To get the weather forcast for every day I went to noa.gov or weather bug, wich was very helpfull. I also figured out that there was a three-day weather history archive at these sites too, in case I forgot to get the weather for a day.
Later when I reviewed the whole chart I saw that we had mostly cloudy days, although there were a lot of sunny days too. Also the average high was 60 degrees and the average low was about 35 degrees.

Activity 4

When we started activity four I thought that the bottle with the black dirt and no clouds would get warmer faster under the light because black gets hot a lot faster. There were four different scenarios, one with white sand and clouds and white sand without clouds then black dirt with clouds and black dirt without clouds. In the results the black dirt with no clouds did actually heat up faster then the rest. The activity connects to my topic because if black dirt with no clouds heats up faster, than areas with that type of dirt might be more prone to landslides. Because a lot of plants could dry up on the hill due to over heating and then when it rains all the lose dirt would turn into a huge muddy landslide.