Ways Humans Impact the Biosphere

Bioacculamtion

Acid rain affected tree

Acid Rain

threatening biodiversity

global warming

ozone layer destruction

Global Warming and Acid Rain

Humans are the reasons why global warming and acid rain happen. This comes from the burning of fossils fuels. The fossils fuels contain carbon dioxide and a lot of other chemicals. It is the carbon dioxide that causes the global warming. Carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, so it acts like a blanket for world and keeps the heat from the sun from escaping the atmosphere. This creates a climate change across the world. It is due to climate change from global warming that the polar ice caps are melting. This affects the life forms that live on the polar caps. It also affects coastal cities as the sea level would rise and potentially flood the city and its inhabitants. The acid rain is created from the nitrogen and sulfur that is released when fossil fuels are burned. The acid rain is so acidic that it would melt the plants, damages buildings and cars, and fill the water supply with chemicals that are poisonous to life so it makes the water undrinkable.

Ozone Layer

The ozone layer is a layer in the earth's stratosphere, which absorbs most of the ultraviolet radiation reaching the earth from the sun. UV light causes cancer, eye damage, and can damage plant tissue. A hole in the ozone layer was found over Antarctica. CFC's, chlorofluroro carbon molecules, from air conditioners, aerosol spray cans, fire extinguishers, and industry helped contribute to the hole in the ozone layer. To help the ozone layer, aerosol cans no longer have CFC's, and gases in air conditioners and fridges are collected and recycled.

Bioaccumulation

Bioaccumulation occurs when pesticides build up in animal tissue as you move up the food chain. One example was when people used pesticides on their plants, which eventually made its way into the ocean, where it poisoned plankton, then poisoned the fish that ate the plankton. Bald Eagles then ate the fish, and laid eggs with fragile shells that broke when sat on.

Decrease in Biodiversity

Biodiversity is the variety of life in the world, or in a particular habitat or ecosystem. If biodiversity decreases then that becomes a major problem because not only are there less plants and animals around in the ecosystem, there is a higher risk of the diseases spreading in animals, as well as humans and plants. There's also less food security within farming.

#Humans #Enviroment