PDS APES 5th Period 2009-10

In class on Tuesday we spent most of the period discussing the evidence (the things we see happening) that shows the earth is warming.

The first piece of evidence we have are record global temperatures.  NASA concluded 2009 to be the second warmest hear on record.  With average global temperatures continuing to increase each year, scientists are starting to relate the temperature increase to global warming and pollutants that create it.

This picture shows the difference between a glacier before and after temperature rises--the glacier has melted significantly.

(http://www.dont-look-now.com/uploaded_images/huaraz.jpg)

Glaciers are taking a major hit because of the earth’s global warming.  According the the National Snow and Ice Data Center, there has been a global 0.74 degree celcius average temperature increase.  This has decreased both the size and number of glaciers found.  In Asia and South America especially, glacier water is a major life support for many people.  The glacier water keeps streams cool, preserve wildlife, and provide water for cities.  As glaciers continue to melt at an increasing rate, the sea level will eventually rise threatening coastal cities and shorelines in the future.

Polar ice is another indicator that the earth is warming.

-The Arctic (North Pole-which contains NO penguins) has perennial ice, which reoccurs each year, up to 10 feet thick.  Though since 1970, there has been a 10% loss of this ice per decade.  The Arctic also contains permafrost that if melted, can seriously damage the tundra and taiga, where it is most prevalent, in a few ways: forest damage, sinking roads and buildings, eroding riverbanks, and increased carbon dioxide and methane emissions.  There are estimates of billions of tons of methane stored in permafrost around the world-almost double the amount in the atmosphere today.  By releasing this methane, there would be a 10-25% increase in global warming.

Drunken Forests are an example of the effects of permafrost melting...the trees become weak in the soil and bend because they are unable to hold themselves up

(http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_8WdTOWE5Hp0/SGwEt1G2zWI/AAAAAAAABV0/R8_ocC8nkS8/s400/IMG_9485_1.JPG)

-Antarctica ( South Pole), covers about 10% of all of earth’s landmass and is covered by many glaciers up to 8000 feet thick.

-Greenland ice is spread out between three islands.  Greenland loses 20% more ice than it gains each year.

Next in class, we discussed the albedo effect and the positive feedback loop. The albedo effect is a measure of how strongly an object reflects light.  Lighter materials such as ice, sand, and snow all have a higher albedo.  The positive feedback loop, ironically, has a negative effect–it goes like this: rise in average temperatures, ice melts (glaciers, polar caps, arctic), loss of reflective ability as ice melts, water temperatures rise, more ice melts, etc.  Between 2004 and 2005, ice masses shrunk by 14% because of the positive feedback loop.

Positive Feedback Loop for Oceans

(http://www.yesmagazine.org/images/issues/88/45Pandora_LoopIceTEXT.jpg)

Other pieces of evidence we have that shows the earth is become warming includes weather severity and biome changes.

-Droughts have become very prevalent in the past few years because of rising temperatures.  Wild fires have become more sever in recent years as well.

-Coral bleaching in the ocean due to changing acidity of ocean water could impact a large percentage of underwater biodiversity.

-Temperature increases can effect animals and reduce biodiversity if animals are unaccustomed to the new higher temperatures.

*Again another positive feedback loop can be made for this: Warmer oceans->less carbon dioxide uptake, carbon dioxide increases, atmosphere becomes warmer, etc.

Coral Bleaching

(http://www.abc.net.au/reslib/200704/r135574_457949.jpg)

We finished class by mentioning a few consequences of earth’s global warming:

-A colder Europe

-Lower salinity in Arctic waters

-Smog increase-air quality worsens

-Spread of tropical diseases

-Changes in Biodiversity

(You can find more/see them all on the handout Mr. W gave out)

Any questions or comments, just post!

Hey guys, so on the study guide, number 7 asks the four R’s of waste reduction and also notes that they need to be prioritized.  The order gave in the book didn’t seem like what we went over in class…and also Mr. Willard has been talking about redesign the past few days, and that was completely left out.  Mr. Willard…or someone else, if you could just please clarify the order…and where redesign fits in to the list? Thanks!

Yesterday in class we learned about the second type of water pollution: Plastic.

To begin class, we watched a video on plastic pollution in the open ocean.

Mr. Willard then talked to us about-

1: Photodegradable plastics, which are plastics that need constant exposure to the sun in order to become weaker and fragmented, are such a large pollution problem because they do NOT completely degrade away. Within this category of plastics are the petroleum based plastics that are synthetically compounded in a lab.  Another term used to describe these plastics is non-biodegradable which means the pieces of plastic are fragmented, but never fully disappear.  Plastic particles that do not float on the surface and are farther down under the water level are not exposed to light.  Therefore, sinking plastic may never have the chance to photodegrade leaving it in large pieces of chunks that can be very dangerous to animals.

*Fact: Every bit of plastic ever made, unless completely incinerated, still exists in pieces somewhere on the earth today.*

The video talked about the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, or the Pacific Trash Vortex, which is a gyre (circular down flowing of currents, down welling, toilet bowl effect) of Marine litter, the size of two Texas’.

Trash of the Great Pacific Garbage Patch

[http://www.freedomsphoenix.com/News/054849-2009-08-04-researchers-set-sail-for-the-great-pacific-garbage-patch.htm]

2. Plastic as a Food Mimic-

Pieces of plastic (tan especially) floating around in the ocean water and on the surface can be mistaken for food by animals that feed off of other tiny animals.  For example, birds bobbing the surface see the tannish plastic, dive down thinking it’s krill or plankton, and ingest the plastic particles, unaware of what they are eating.

-Plastics in the water can act as sponges for toxins floating within the ocean water into animals that eat the plastic.

-PCB has because a particularly prevalent toxin found in high amounts in seabirds in the last few years.

-Plastic Resin Nurdles, which are raw forms of plastic (also can be seen in the form of blue and yellow pellets in the jar in Mr. W’s classroom), are round and look like fish eggs to predators. They are also accumulators of hydrophobic pollutants (DDE & PCB).

A the plastic-filled inside of a dead seabird.

http://www.doobybrain.com/tag/trash/page/2/

“The Ocean is like a soup, the stock is getting thicker, and instead of noodles, there are nurdles”; -Captain Morris

3. Concentrate Toxins

-Toxins such as DDE and PCB are absorbed into plastic resin pellets and and then become up ti 1,000,000 times their level in ambient sea water.

At the end of class we tried to come up with some solutions:

~The major solutions we decided upon were to prevent plastic from entering the water altogether; but really, how practical is that with the modern day US?

~Also, we decided to Reduce, Reuse, & Recycle is something to keep in mind for the future;

*Note: Bottle caps cannot be recycled*

We finished up class watching another video about sailing the Great Pacific Garbage Patch with Charles Moore:

-Quick thought to end with: What will the oceans be like (especially for marine life) generations from now if we continue to pollute the oceans with such large amounts of plastic?  Can we and should we attempt to take steps in lowering the amount of pollution damage (plastic) we are inflicting on the oceans?

I hope this helped! Any questions, just ask!

Number 3 on the study guide asks that if “we, humanity, produces more than enough food to meet the basic nutritional needs of every person on earth, why do one in six people in developing countries not get enough to eat?”  Food insecurity, or living with chronic hunger and malnutrition that threatens the ability to lead healthy and productive lives is one of the main topics the book brings up about this subject.  Poverty, war, and corruption also are reasons people have poor access to food.  Did we ever discuss why the US or other developed nations don’t take part in helping these poorer countries have food to survive?  I think we might have discussed this in class, but I thought since I was questioning myself on it, I would see if anyone else remembered what we said…thanks!

Hey guys, so I was reading through the chapter tonight and I came across section 14-5 where the heading of the paragraph was “The greatest risks are associated with poverty, gender, and lifestyle choices”.  I read through this section and got a clear picture as to why poverty and lifestyle choices were greater risks.  Though, the section seems to have skipped over why your gender can be a possible risk.  The book says being born male is a health risk…but I don’t understand why your gender has anything to do with your health.  If anyone has any idea or a good guess, I’d love to know.  Thanks.

Hey guys, so as I was reading through my book and looking at my study guide, I realized I never really got a final answer to the question being asked on the chapter 8 study guide, number 23: “Protecting areas as true wilderness ha produced lively debate for over a century.  What piece of legislation allows Congress to designate an area as a wilderness area?  Why can this be controversial?”  The book says that Congress passed the Wilderness Act which allowed the government to protect undeveloped tracts of land from development.  But also, later on in the same section, it mentions something about a Secretary of Interior, which I’m not too sure what they do…?  Was it just the government that helped protect it? If any one understood this part and got an answer to this question…any help would be great, thanks.

Hey guys, two quick questions.  On test number 4, question 31 (which was a short paragraph about two fruit-eating pigeons.  They live among the same species of trees, the larger pigeon eats the larger fruits and uses the stronger branches to perch while the smaller species of pigeons eats small fruits from weaker branches)  The question asks what this is an example of.  The correct answer for this question was competitive exclusion which we have defined as- If two species within the same niche coexist in the same ecosystem then one will be excluded from the community due to intense competition (both suffer, losers migrate or die etc.)  I really don’t see how this question fits this definition.  If the pigeons are perfectly happy eating the same fruits at different tree branch levels, what is the big deal?  I don’t see how one of them would have to move or how both suffer. I put mutualism because I thought it seemed as if both benefited?  If someone could help me out or share their ideas that would be great!

Also, feeling kind of stupid, but this math thing is killing me.  Like on the last test, if a problem says their is 1.2 billion people, how does the decimal effect the number of zeros you put on the number?

While going over my study guide and reading back through the book i realized I am not 100% sure what a demographic trap is.  The book says the trap occurs in stage 2 and that developing countries like Africa which is being ravaged by HIV/AIDS have had their death rate increase and could be falling back into stage 1.  So, does this mean that all countries that experience demographic trap fall back a stage (2->1)?  And are their other example countries anyone knows of that are victims (weird for this, I know)  of a demographic trap? Thanks.

Hey guys, so I was reading through the book tonight, and I came across a section talking about Keystone and Foundation species.  In one sentence it talked about an elephant being a foundation species.  I immediately thought back to the worksheet we did for homework that night and remembered we put an elephant as a definite K species because it had large adults, long maturity rate, etc.  The book says the elephant does many things to disturb the environment that in the long run, helps it out.  SO, my question is, would we consider all animals that do this to be foundation species, even if they are obviously keystone?  If a clear keystone species impacts the environment in some way that turns out to be helpful, like the elephant, is it foundation as well?  Just need some clarification on how to classify…thanks:)

Hey guys, so after looking over all my diagrams, then reading Mr. Willard’s email, I realized I didn’t write down the names of the convection cells that we are supposed to be familiar with.  Also, I’m still a tad iffy on how these work.  Are they on the coasts over water?  And, do these cells effect or are they affected by the Coriolis Effect?  What creates them? Thanks!