Untitled Flashcards Set

Fundamental Concepts

1. What is exponential growth?

   1. Exponential growth is the growth rate where a fixed percentage is added on to an initial population’s growth percentage [is increasing].

2. What is sustainability?

   1. Sustainability is the practice of preserving what’s currently available so future generations have equal access to resources.

3. What are some causes and implications of freshwater salinization and nitrogen pollution (from lecture)

   1. Freshwater salinization is caused by unregulated road salts, which melt into drinking water basins and lead to unhealthy water quality.

   2. Nitrogen pollution is caused by the algae and bacteria created from nitrogen and phosphorus in water, which decompose to suck up oxygen; hypoxia: a dead zone in water with little oxygen

4. What are residence times, mass balance approaches, pools, fluxes, steady state (from lecture and book)?

   1. Residence times: the amount of time a substance (water, carbon, nutrients) remains in a reservoir/pool before relocating

   2. Mass balance approaches: a method to analyze how a substance moves through a system by considering inputs, outputs, and internal changes

   3. Pools: place where substances (water, carbon, nutrients) can subside / storage locations where matter accumulates in a system

   4. Fluxes: the movements of materials between pools

   5. Steady state: a system is in steady state when inputs and outputs are balanced, meaning there is no net accumulation of depletion in the pools

5. What is Earth System Science?

   1. Studies the earth as a whole and its components through the lens that the earth is a interconnected system

6. What is uniformitarianism vs. catastrophism?

   1. Uniformitarianism: the earth’s processes are continuous and have been so throughout history to shape our earth today

   2. Catastrophism: the earth has had a couple rapid changes (asteroid, etc) that changed it

7. What is Earth System Science and the 5 spheres?

   1. Atmosphere: weather, climate, greenhouse effect

   2. Lithosphere/geosphere: plate tectonics, minerals, rocks

   3. Hydrosphere: water bodies (ocean, river, lake, groundwater, etc)

   4. Anthroposphere: human activity (pollution, climate change, urbanization)

   5. Biosphere: biodiversity and all living organisms and ecosystems

8. How have humans altered the nitrogen cycle and what are consequences?

   1. Fertilizer

      1. Synthetic nitrogen fertilizer → extra nitrogen in soil → runoff of nutrients into water body

   2. Fossil fuel combustion

      1. Burning coal, oil, and gas has contributed to pollution of atmosphere → SMOG and acid rain

9. What is the scientific method?

   1. Observation → Hypothesis → test → validify → repeated one is a theory

10. Why is population growth an environmental problem?

    1. Resource depletion to accomodate for growth