ELSS 1.3

• Curvette Centrale Peatlands Case Study: How many kilometres does the peatlands cover in terms of the impact of fossil fuels on the carbon cycle 145,000
• Curvette Centrale Peatlands Case Study: Why are the peatlands so important in terms of the impact of fossil fuels on the carbon cycle (3) - Store 20x as much carbon as US release burning fossil fuels each year - Stores 3 years worth of total fossil fuel emissions - 30% of worlds tropical peatland store is stored here
• Curvette Centrale Peatlands Case Study: Threats to the peatlands in terms of the impact of fossil fuels on the carbon cycle - Drilling
• Curvette Centrale Peatlands Case Study: How is drilling affecting the peatlands in terms of the impact of fossil fuels on the carbon cycle (3) - Releases greenhouse gases equivalent to Japans annual emissions - Peatlands are a new frontier for oil expoloration with a predicted oil deposit of 360 million barrels - 1.34 gigtonnes of carbon would be released if drilling takes place
• Curvette Centrale Peatlands Case Study: How are the peatlands being managed in terms of the impact of fossil fuels on the carbon cycle (3) - Brazzaville declaration - declaration to protect peatlands - UN environment committee initiative to save the peatlands - High level scientific comittee set to improve local understanding of the importance of the peatlands
• During a glacial period how much less precipitation on average compared to today is there 14%
• What are the uses of remote sensing (2) - Large area coverage - Easy data collection over a variety of scales and it is a relatively cheap method of recontstructing a base map
• What are passive sensors in terms of remote sensing - Something that takes information emitted from the earth and reflects it
• What are active sensors in terms of remote sensing Somehting that transmits a signal and reflects it back and records the change
• What is GIS - A piece of software that allows for a layering of data information on top of one another - It connects data to the map - Remote sensing and gis work together to provide information
• Advantages of remote sensing (2) - Quantity of data that can be collected - Information is easily transferred to other software like GIS
• Disadvantages of remote sensing (2) - Very expensive for the average country - If the system breaks it cannot be repaired
• Describe the impact of human factors on dynamic equilibrium in terms of human factors impact on water and carbon cycle (2) - Most natural systems, unaffected by human activity exist in a state of dynamic equilibrium, they have continuous inputs, transfers and outputs, in the short term the inputs, outputs and sotes will fluctuate annually but maintain balance in the long term - This results in a series of positive and negative feedback loops
• Provide positive and negative feedback loops in the water cycle with regards to dynamic equilibrium in terms of human factors impact on water and carbon cycle (2) - Positive feedback: Rising temps result in greater cloud cover and more precipitation, more vapour in atmosphere increases absorption of long qave radiation, causing further temperature rise - Negative feedback: More water vapour creates greater cloud cover which reflects more solar radiation back into space leading to temperature fall
• Describe positive and negative feedback loops in the carbon cycle with regards to dynamic equilibrium in terms of human factors impact on water and carbon cycle (2) - Positive: Global warming will intensify carbon cycle speeding up decomposition and releasing co2 amplifying greenhouse has effect - Negative: High levels of co2 leads to carbon fertilisation, excess co2 is extracted from atmosphere and stored in the biosphere
• What are the land use change human factors that impact the water and carbon cycle (3) - Urbanisation - Agriculture - Forestry
• Describe the impact of urbanisation on the water cycle with regards to land use change human factors in terms of human factors impact on water and carbon cycle (2) - Creates more impermeable surfaces reducing infiltration and increasing surface run off, reducing lag time - Urban drainage systems deliver rainwater more quickly to rivers than natural sources, reducing lag time and increasing flood risk, 50% of rainfall ends up as run off compared to 10% in natural areas
• Describe urbanisations impact on the carbon cycle with regards to land use change human factors in terms of human factors impact on water and carbon cycle (2) - Urban areas reduce amount of surface vegetation, reducing npp and reducing carbon in biomass - Increased co2 emissions into atmospheric store from energy consumption in urban areas like transport and industry and cement production
• Describe the impact of agriculture on the water cycle with regards to land use change human factors in terms of human factors impact on water and carbon cycle (3) - irrigation diverts water from rivers and groundwater supplies to cultivated land, some water is used by plants - Interception, evapotranspiration rates are lower in agrosystems than in forest ecosystems reducing vapour in atmosphere - Ploughing increases soil moisture loss and leads to increased run off and soil erosion, use of mechanised machinery compacts the soil leading to increased runoff
• Describe Agricultures impact on the carbon cycle with regards to land use change human factors in terms of human factors impact on water and carbon cycle (2) - Clearance of forest for farming reduces carbon stored in soil and biomass, ploughing exposes soil organic matter to oxidation - Harvesting results in only small amounts of organic matter being returned to soil, with rice paddies and livestock contributing greatly to methane emissions, with farm machinery emitting co2
• Describe the impact of forestry on the water cycle with regards to land use change human factors in terms of human factors impact on water and carbon cycle (2) - Plantations of natural forst increase interception of rainfall - like sitka spruce forest in the UK intercepting up to 60% of precipitation - Evaporation increases as leaf store water evaporates directly back into the atmosphere - Removing forest for grassland increases run off by 27X
• Describe the impact of forestry on the carbon cycle with regards to land use change human factors in terms of human factors impact on water and carbon cycle - Changing grassland to forests increases carbon stores 10 times, forests extract co2 from atmosphere and sequester it for hundreds of years, forest trees are only an active sink for 100 years, therefore plantations rotate trees evert 80-100 years
• Describe the use of fossil fuels and its impact on the carbon cycle with regards to how fossil fuels impact the carbon cycle in terms of human factors impact on water and carbon cycle (2) - In 2013 fossil fuels accounted for 87% if global energy consumption releasing 10 billion tonnes of co2 annually, today co2 levels are the highest in 800,000 years - Anthropogenic emissions account for less than 10% of the natural influx of carbon from the biosphere and oceans to the atmosphere, fossil fuels impact the size of the oceanic and biospheric stores
• Describe the sequestration of carbon waste with regards to how fossil fuels impact the carbon cycle in terms of human factors impact on water and carbon cycle (2) - Carbon capture and storeage technology has been piloted at a few coal powerstations, this could be significant as 40% of USA emissions come from coal and gas fired stations, CCS could reduce emissions from these by 90% - However it is expensive and uses a lot of energym for example the drax and peterhead projects cost 1 billion GBP, and also requires specific geological areas, like porous rock overlain by impermeable strata
• Provide some key facts with regards to how water extraction impacts the water cycle in terms of human factors impact on water and carbon cycle (2) - Water is extracted from surface and groundwater to meet public, industrial and agricultural demand, thames water is a service that supplies 15 million customers across greater london daily - Aquifers are underfround stores of water which can be abstracted using wells and bores, with the water table being the border between saturated and dry rock, fluctuating according to amount of extraction and season
• Describe artesian basins with regards to how water extraction impacts the water cycle in terms of human factors impact on water and carbon cycle (2) - Formed when sedimentary rock form a basin shape called a syncline, an aquifer forms that is trapped between impermeable layers meaning the water is stored underpressure - This allows water to rise to surface through a well or borehole under its own pressure known as an artesian well or basin
• Describe Londons Artesian basin with regards to how water extraction impacts the water cycle in terms of human factors impact on water and carbon cycle (2) - Groundwater is found in the chalk layer underneath london, trapped between london clay above and gault clay beneath, rainwater from the north downs and chiltern hill recharges the chalk aquifer - Over abstraction from the artesian basin in the 19th 20th centuries have led to a dramatic fall in the water table by over 90m, thames water now is granted licenses to abstract certain amounts, allowing the water table to stabilise under this man...
• Describe the river Kennet with regards to how water extraction impacts the water cycle in terms of human factors impact on water and carbon cycle (2) - River drainage basin is mainly found on chalk which is highly permeable, therefore groundwater is essential to the rivers flow, the chalk naturally filters the water providing a clear, oxygenated and fast flowing water - Thames water abstracts water from the upper catchment using boreholes to supply local industries, agriculture and public use in areas like Swindon
• Describe the impacts of water abstraction on the river kennet with regards to how water extraction impacts the water cycle in terms of human factors impact on water and carbon cycle (2) - Water table has fallen and the river flow has reduced by 10-14%, during the 2003 drought the flow of the river fell by 20% - There is reduced amount of flooding on the kennets floodplain which is starving the wetlands on the floodplain, springs have dried up
• Describe the resolutions to water abstraction on the river kennet with regards to how water extraction impacts the water cycle in terms of human factors impact on water and carbon cycle (2) - A new 12 mile pipeline is to supply part of Berkshire, attempting to reduce amount of water taken from the kennet - Pleaing the public to use less water during heatwaves to 'save the kennet
• Describe Short term changes to the water cycle in terms of how the water and carbon cycles change across a range of temporal scales (3) - lower temperatures at night reduces evaporation and transpiration, convectional precipiation is a daytime phenomenon often falling in the afternoon when temperatures reach maximum - significant in climatic regions in the tropics were the bul of precipitation is convectional storms - Extreme latitudes diurnal effects are not as relevant, as it may be light or dark all day, resulting in either higher or lower insolation, evaporation and precipiration - Water a...
• Describe long term glacial impacts on the water cycle in terms of how the water and carbon cycles change across a range of temporal scales (2) - Sea levels fall worldwide by between 100 and 130 metres as water is stored in the cryosphere, ice sheets expand to cover 1/3 of continental land mass - The area covered by vegetation and water stored in the biosphere shrinks, lower rates if evapotranspiration combined with an expanding cryosphere to slow down the water cycle
• Describe long term interglacial changes to the water cycle in terms of how the water and carbon cycles change across a range of temporal scales (3) - Increase in evapotranspiration as temperatures are higher, more water is moved through the cycle, increasing run off into rivers - Glaciers and ice sheets shrink increasing infiltration and groundwater stores after and initial period of waterlogged soil - As water storage in cryosphere shrinks it makes its way to rivers and oceans increasing sea level while water vapour created in the atmosphere releases latent heat explaining the increase in tro...
• Describe short term changes to the carbon cycle in terms of how the water and carbon cycles change across a range of temporal scales (2) - Seasonal fluctuations in co2 due to length of days shortening and lengthening throughout the year, phytoplankton affected as water temps cool during winter reducing the oceans photoperiod - During the daytime co2 flows from the atmosphere to vegetation, this flux is reversed at night, without sunlight photosynthesis cannot operate and vegetation loses co2 to the atmosphere, same occurs with phytoplankton in the oceans
• Describe long term glacial changes to the carbon cycle in terms of how the water and carbon cycles change across a range of temporal scales (3) - Dramatic reduction in co2 in the atmosphere, phytoplankton growth absorb co2 and then sinks and dies in biological pump storing the carbon - Lower ocean temps allow for a greater diffusion of co2 into the oceans - Carbon pools in vegetation shrink in glacials as a result of advancing ice sheets, ice covers soil preventing exchange of carbon between the soil to the atmosphere
• Describe long term interglacial changes to the carbon cycle in terms of how the water and carbon cycles change across a range of temporal scales (2) - As temperatures continue to increase, in tropical areas the ability for vegetation to store carbon diminishes and it increases in higher latitudes - Carbon is released as permafrost melts and peat stores decompose
• Describe the importance of research and monitoring techniques to record changes in water and carbon cycles - Groundbased methods f monitoring environmental change becomes impractical so monitoring begins to rely on satellite technology, allowing for changes to be observed on various timescales, GIS is used to map this data and analyse trends and show regions of greatest change
• Describe examples Remote sensing satellite technology to monitor changes to the water cycle (2) - Arctic sea ice - monitored by NASAs earth observing system since 1978 measuring microwave energy radiated from earths surface - Ice caps and glaciers - monitored by ICESat-2 which measures the surface height of ice sheets and glaciers using laser technology
• Describe examples Remote sensing satellite technology to monitor changes to the carbon cycle (2) - Sea surface temperatures - Monitored by NOAA satellites which include radiometers measuring wave band of radiation emitted from ocean surface - Atmospheric CO2 - monitored by NASAs orbiting carbon observatory 2 the satellite measures levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and the effectiveness of absorption of co2 by plants
• Describe the atmosphere in terms of how the water and carbon cycles are interlinked and interdependent - Plants which are important carbon stores extract water from the soil and transpire, water is then evaporated from oceans to the atmosphere and co2 is exchanged by photosynthesis and respiration