6/30/2023 0 Comments Definition of fyelsDepartment of Agriculture and the Department of Energy. EPA implements the program in consultation with U.S. The Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 (EISA) further amended the CAA by expanding the RFS program. Learn more in these real-world examples, and challenge yourself to construct a model that explains the Earth system relationships.The Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS) program was created under the Energy Policy Act of 2005 (EPAct), which amended the Clean Air Act (CAA). Visit the greenhouse effect, greenhouse gases, and temperature pages to learn more about how burning fossil fuels affects global climate and ecosystems. The warm water returned to nearby ecosystems can cause stress for local species.Ĭan you think of additional cause and effect relationships between the burning of fossil fuels and other parts of the Earth system? Power plants that burn fossil fuels cool their systems by removing freshwater from local rivers and lakes. Additionally, acid rain increases chemical weathering of rocks, including manmade structures. Acid rain can contaminate freshwater sources, resulting in harmful algal blooms that reduce water oxygen levels and harm fish populations and other wildlife. Sulfur dioxide (SO 2), nitrogen oxides (NOx), and carbon dioxide (CO 2) react with water vapor, oxygen, and other chemicals to form acid rain. Increasing the acidity of precipitation.In certain parts of the world, the presence of soot (in addition to global warming) has caused winter ice and snow melts earlier and faster today than in previous decades, which also changes local patterns of freshwater availability. Airborne particles (especially soot) that settle on snow increase the absorption of sunlight due to their dark color, heating the surface of the snow causing melting. Changing patterns of snow and ice melt.The net effect of burning fossil fuels is warming because the cooling is small compared with the heating caused by the greenhouse effect, in part because airborne particles only stay suspended in the atmosphere for a few days to months, while greenhouse gases that cause warming remain in the atmosphere for many decades to hundreds of years. The reason is that the airborne particles, such as soot and sulfate aerosols (from sulfur dioxide), reflect some sunlight back into space, increase cloud formation, and make clouds more reflective. The airborne particles also increase the reflectivity of the atmosphere, which has a slight cooling effect.Poor air quality can cause respiratory disease. Emitting an array of pollutants that reduce air quality and harm life, especially sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and airborne particles such as soot.These greenhouse gases can remain in the atmosphere for decades to hundreds of years. Releasing the greenhouse gases carbon dioxide (CO 2) and nitrous oxide (N 2O) into the atmosphere, which intensifies the greenhouse effect (the re-radiation of heat in the atmosphere), increasing the Earth’s average air temperatures.The burning of fossil fuels affects the Earth system in a variety of ways. Thus, the carbon dioxide released from the burning of fossil fuels accumulates in the atmosphere, some of which then dissolves in the ocean causing ocean acidification. The burning of this fossil material returns this carbon back into atmosphere as carbon dioxide, at a rate that is hundreds to thousands of times faster than it took to bury, and much faster than can be removed by the carbon cycle. To grow these organisms removed carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and the ocean, and their burial inhibited the movement of that carbon through the carbon cycle. Flares burn at sunset in the Bakken oil and gas fields in North Dakota Credit: Jeff Peischl/CIRES and NOAAįossil fuels form over millions of years from the burial of photosynthetic organisms, including plants on land (which primarily form coal) and plankton in the oceans (which primarily form oil and natural gas).
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |