AP Bio - Chapter 50
Terms
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- Pollutants
- Substances with which ecosystems have had no prior evolutionary experience, so adaptive mechanisms to deal with them are not in place.
- Thermal Inversion
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When a layer of cool, dense air is trapped under war air.
Winds cannot dispense pollutants --> accumulate. - Industrial Smog
- Industrial pollutants (dust, smoke, etc⬦) accumulate over cities as a gray haze in cold, wet winters; can become lethal.
- Photochemical Smog
- Nitrogen dioxide accumulates from oxygen reacting with nitric oxide and reacts with hydrocarbons to form a brown haze over land basins in warm climates.
- Dry Acid Deposition
- When sulfur and nitrogen oxides fall in dry weather.
- Acid Rain
- When dry acid deposition falls as rain or snow (pH can be 10-100x lower).
- CFCs
- Chlororfluorocarbons; used as coolants in many household items; reacts with oxygen, ultimately releases chlorine atom that breaks down over 10,000 ozone molecules.
- Green Revolution
- Research towards improving the genetic character of crop plants and exporting modern resources and practices to developing countries.
- Animal-Assisted Agriculture
- Relies on energy from draft animals.
- Mechanized Agriculture
- Yields are much higher, but requires many resources and much more energy.
- Deforestation
- The removal of all trees from large tracts of land for logging, agriculture, and grazing operations.
- Shifting Cultivation
- The practice of cutting and burning trees, then tilling the ashes into soil, which can then sustain crops for at least one season.
- Desertification
- Conversion of large grasslands to new desert-like conditions.
- Desalinization
- The removal of salt from seawater.
- Salinization
- A build up of salt in soil; result of evaporation in soil that drains poorly.
- Water Table
- The upper limit at which the ground is fully saturated.
- Primary Wastewater Treatment
- Screens and settling tanks used to remove sludge ïƒ disposed; chlorine is used, doesn’t kill all germs.
- Secondary Wastewater Treatment
- Microbial populations break down organic matter.
- Tertiary Wastewater Treatment
- Reduces pollution (expensive and experimental).
- Net Energy
- Energy left after process of delivering energy to consumers.
- Nuclear Meltdown
- Water is overheated --> steam reacts with other chemicals --> could release radioactive material.
- Solar-Hydration Energy
- – Sunlight-created energy in “photovoltaic cells†can split water molecules --> oxygen and hydrogen gas (can be used a fuel).
- Wind Farms
- Arrays of turbines that exploit wind patterns and convert sunlight and wind into mechanical energy.
- Fusion Power
- The sun’s gravitational force’s ability to compress atomic nuclei into high densities and temperatures high enough to force atomic nuclei to fuse.