Climate Change

A) The greenhouse effect is when heat from the sun gets trapped in the Earth's atmosphere. This happens for several reasons. For starters, more sun gets let into the atmosphere now than before due to the holes in the O-zone layer, caused by an increase in CFC's and other carbons being burned or released into the air. Heat from the sun's rays is usually greatly dissipated by the O-zone layer, but in thinner spots, more UV rays are reaching Earth's surface. From there, the heat would usually reflect off things such as rocks and water on Earth's surface.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:The_green_house_effect.svg

However, things in the air can hold on to heat. Gases such as CO2, oxygen, water vapor, and methane all hold onto heat very well. As these gases rise, they deflect the sun's rays back towards the Earth, rather than back out of the atmosphere. This obviously greatly increases the temperature of the Earth, which is the largest factor in determining climate of an area. Heat-trapping mechanisms are natural on Earth, and should be here in order to maintain temperatures on different parts of the Earth. Some do a better job of retaining heart than others. Water vapor is the highest heat-retainer, it contributes about 36-72% of greenhouse effects. Soon after it is carbon dioxide, which contributes about 9-26% (1). It probably isn't a coincidence that these are two things that humans produce through respiration. Carbon dioxide is a large problem due to the large amounts of carbon emissions since the industrial revolution (2).

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/c/cb/Global_Carbon_Emission_by_Type_to_Y2004.png

Items such as the ones listed on the graph above greatly increase the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere, which as said before, holds onto heat extremely well. Another large contributer to global warming, although not the first thing that comes to mind, is cows. Cows release very large amounts of methane, which are also good at retaining heat. It wouldn't be so bad if there weren't as many cows as there are in the world, but as they are raised for consumers, they must be in large quantities, which unfortunately, greatly raises the methane levels in the air. However, things are being done to reduce these elements in the air. New green energy plans include using methane as a power source. Another plan is plants, which bring in carbon dioxide and sun's rays in order to use cellular respiration.

B) Natural mechanisms can also play a large role the climate. Large volcanic eruptions release large amounts of CO2 and they also create extremely vast dust clouds that cover large areas, preventing the sun's rays from reaching the plants and animals that are under the giant cloud. Temperatures drop in these places, and only some species can survive the switch from warmth to cold in such a short period of time.

http://www.esa.int/images/greenhouse_L.jpg

A large theory about how the dinosaurs became extinct and the last ice age started is that a very large meteorite hit the Earth, which put a lot of sulfur and CO2 in the air, and forming a cloud over a majority of the Earth that prevented light from reaching plants and animals. Soon enough the plants died out due to no sun. This had a large effect on the other animals in several ways. For one, plants produce a majority of the oxygen that other organisms breathe. If all the plants were gone, then there would be hardly any oxygen, so the dinosaurs would have instead been breathing in CO2, which kills animals. The other problem would have been that primary consumers would have had nothing more to eat, and the food chain would have been ended because of that. Once all the energy had left the system, organisms would have been extinct, but their bodies leaving behind all forms of elements in order to make way for primary succession later on.

Bibliography

(1) Kiehl, J. T.; Kevin E. Trenberth (February 1997). "Earth’s Annual Global Mean Energy Budget" (PDF). Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society 78 (2): 197–208. doi:10.1175/1520-0477(1997)078<0197:eagmeb>2.0.CO;2. Retrieved 2009-11-23.

(2)"Climate Change 2001: Working Group I: The Scientific Basis: figure 6-6". Retrieved 2009-11-23

Biogeochemical Cycles

A) Carbon is how biologists determine if something is organic or not, as all organic organisms contain carbon. It is one of the few universally common things about life. Carbon helps and hurts with many things. It reacts with almost every other element. This is because it only has 4 valence electrons, which means it covalently bonds with other elements very easily(1).

http://www.ccs.k12.in.us/chsBS/kons/kons/images/carbon.gif

Carbon can take on many forms due to this as well. It can be the three forms of elements (solid, liquid, gas) all at the same temperature. As a solid, we carbon in places such as limestone, graphite, lead, and even diamonds. As a liquid, carbon can be in our drinks, in the form of carbonic acid. As a gas, carbon can be in many forms, such as carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. Carbon can move through all these stages fairly quickly. A fairly good example of a carbon cycle would be a limestone rock being eroded by water, where carbon is released into the atmosphere as CO2. This CO2, if in high enough concentrations, can join into clouds and rain down as a form of acid rain. A fair amount of times, this rain lands in a body of water, which is then consumed by organisms. These organisms eventually die and their carcass slowly forms into a carbon deposit in the earth. Over hundreds of years, this turns into stone, bringing the cycle back to its origin. Society is benefited by carbon in many ways. Many structures would not have been build without carbon, as most compounds include carbon. Diamonds, lead vests, pencils, and many other items we know today would not exist if not for carbon. However, carbon also is a large contributer to global warming, as it creates holes in the ozone layer and also holds onto heat in the atmosphere.

http://www.met.utah.edu/jhorel/companion/gifs/carbon_cycle.gif

B) The nitrogen cycle is a very large part of Earth's life systems. Nitrogen is included in the four most common elements on Earth, along with oxygen, carbon, and hydrogen(2). The cycle moves much-needed nitrogen into different parts of ecosystems in different forms. Many organisms use nitrogen to sustain themselves. Nitrogen is cycled through by all kinds of plants, animals, and fungi. Each one doing something such as nitrifying bacteria or other matter in each step of the cycle.

http://fig.cox.miami.edu/faculty/dana/nitrogencycle.gif

C) All elements in nature can be dangerous to living organisms. This works great with the idea of having things in moderation. Even water, something that we are always told we never get enough of, is dangerous in large quantities. A lot of this has to do with the pH of substances. Small amounts of an acid aren't too harmful, such as tomato juice. However, if you were to eat enough tomatoes, you would probably start to get acid reflux, which is your body telling you when you've had enough. Many different elements can be used as an example. Medicines are a prime example. We take things such as aspirin to help ourselves, but having too much aspirin has been linked to deterioration of the intestinal lining.

Bibliography

(1,2)Campbell, N. A. (Ed.). (2008). Biology eighth edition. San Francisco, CA: Pearson Benjamin Cummings.

5 Things from the Nightsky

1. Moon
2. Big Dipper
3. North Star
4. Little Dipper
5. Part of Draco

Nature Trail Blog #2

5 differences
1. Trails clean
2. Fewer pricker plants
3. More Land
4. Leaves had fallen
5. Signs cleaned and painted

5 things the school can do
1. Have clean up days
2. Donate some money to keeping clean
3. Field Trips
4. Create educational structures
5. Hold fundraisers

5 things the community can do
1. Help clean up
2. Have special "Kids Day"s
3. Volunteer time to build educational structures
4. Donate money
5. Set up charity runs or walks along the path

Nature Trail Blog

1. Box elder Bugs- Primary Consumers
2. Lady Bugs- Primary Consumers
3. Mosquitoes- Parasitic Consumers
4. Capped Mushrooms- Decomposers
5. Oak Trees- Producers
6. Sparrows- Secondary Consumers
7. Starlings- Secondary Consumers
8. Pricker Plants- Producers
9. Poison Ivy- Producers
10. Moss- Producers
11. Tree Fungi- Decomposer
12. Lichens- Consumers
13. Certain species of budding flowers- Producers
14. Maple Trees- Producers
15. Duckweed- Producers

The nature trail is a representative of our community because it contains the organisms that make up the rest of our community. It is also supported and generated by people's volunteering and donations. Many of the organisms on the trail can be found pretty much anywhere in the area. The species range from very small to very large, different colours, and different ages.

My NASA page

The internet was going really slow and I couldn't bookmark most of the things I tried bookmarking. I tried adding some more pictures than the one that is on there right now, but I couldn't do that either for some reason. I did read about some interesting things though, such as black holes and Michael Phelps special swim suit.

http://mynasa.nasa.gov/portal/site/mynasa/index.jsp

Bottle Biology update week 3

The results are kind of odd. I think the first collection of data was skewed because there was a 400 point difference between the conductivity of the first week and this week. the pH changed as I suspected though. The control is staying fairly the same, while the experiment is lowering its pH.