carbon cycles & water cycles are affected by human activity

• what has growing demand for food, fuel and other resources led to?

  • deforestation
  • afforestation
  • conversion of grasslands
• oceans acidification is increasing due to fossil fuel combustion
• ocean acidification is a huge problem as oceans are a huge carbon sink, increased acidity means more carbonic acid dissolves in calcium carbonate negativly affecting marine life and some creatures need it to make shells e.g. phytoplankton
• coral reefs also rely on calcium carbonate and a reduction will see them begin to dissolve and lead to permanent damage going past the critical threshold
• humans have influenced climate change by adding to the greenhouse effect by burning more fossil fuels
• this leads to more drought and death of trees releasing more carbon, a case study for this is the Amazon drought events:

  • severe drought between 2005 and 2010
  • plants and animals used to moist conditions died
  • photosynthesis slowed down = less carbon taken out atmosphere
  • wildfires released more carbon dioxide