Earth’s Physical Environment and

How Abiotic Factors Effect Ecology

PART 1

Readings: Text Chapter 2

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 Overview
• Introduction and Climate
• Atmospheric and Ocean Circulation: the roles of
temperature, wind, salinity, and precipitation.
❖ Greenhouse Effect

• Global Climate Patterns

❖ Coriolis Effect

• Regional Climate Patterns

❖ Microclimates

• Climate Variation
❖ El Niño

❖ Ozone Hole

❖ Climate Change

• Chemical Environment: ocean acidification

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 Climate and
Weather
• Weather

• Climate

• Climate controls where

and how organisms live
(including humans).
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 Global Energy Balance
Key Concept: Energy that drives climate derived
from solar radiation!

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 Global Energy Balance
• Conduction • Not every location on
• Convection earth receives the
same amount of
energy from the sun:
location and seasonally
dependent.

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Global Energy Balance

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 Greenhouse Effect
• Greenhouse effect is NOT climate change!
• Greenhouse gases: absorb and reradiate the infrared
radiation emitted by Earth back down to Earth.

• Greenhouse gases include:

❖ Carbon dioxide (CO2)

❖ Methane (CH4)

❖ Nitrous oxide (N2O)

❖ Water vapor (H2O)

• The greenhouse effect enables

life as we know it on earth!

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 Greenhouse Effect: Enhanced by
Human Induced Greenhouse Gases

The greenhouse effect, when augmented by anthropogenic

inputs of greenhouse gases, contributes to climate change 8
 Atmospheric and Oceanic Circulation

• Wind patterns and ocean currents result from

differences in solar radiation across earth’s
surface.

• Large-scale atmospheric and oceanic circulation

patterns establish global patterns of temperature
and precipitation.

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Surface Heating and Uplift

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 Atmospheric
Pressure
• Atmospheric pressure

• Raising warm air

condenses, can form
clouds, and may rain.

• Subsidence

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 Hadley Cells
• Caused by differential surface heating and uplift.

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 Atmospheric
Circulation
• Circulation cells establish
the major climate zones on
Earth: tropics, temperate,
and polar.

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Atmospheric Circulation and Wind Patterns
• Differential heating causes zones of high and low
atmospheric pressure.
• prevailing winds – consistent patterns of air
movement caused by atmospheric pressure
differences.
• We expect air to flow linearly from places of high
pressure to areas of low pressure.
• On Earth, prevailing winds appear to deflect to the
right (clockwise) in the northern hemisphere and
to the left (counter clockwise) in the southern
hemisphere.
• Why?
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 Coriolis Effect
• Apparent curvature/deflection of global winds,
ocean currents, and everything else that moves
freely across the Earth’s surface.
• Phenomena due to the rotation of the Earth on its
axis.
• Remember – we live
on a giant sphere
rotating at 1,040 mph!

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 Coriolis Effect
• At the equator, the circumference of the Earth is
40,070 kilometers, and the day is 24 hours long so
the speed is
1670 kilometers/hour
(~1040 miles/hr.).

• Speed decreases
by the cosine of
your latitude so
that at a latitude
of 45 degrees,
cos(45) = .707 and
the speed is .707 x 1670 = 1180 kilometers/hr. 16
Coriolis Effect

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Coriolis Effect: Example

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 Coriolis Effect
• The amount of deflection related to both the
speed of the air and its latitude.
❖ Slow winds deflected little

❖ Strong winds deflected more

❖ Winds closer to the poles deflected more

than winds at the same speed closer to the

equator.
• The Coriolis force is zero right at the equator.
• To an observer from space, there is no
apparent deflection.

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Coriolis Effect

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Coriolis Effect

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Coriolis Effect

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 Global Wind Patterns
• Trade
winds

• Westerlies

• Equatorial
doldrums

• Horse
latitudes

• Convergence Zone
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 Global Wind Patterns and Currents
• Heat capacity of water – higher than air; water can
absorb and store more energy without its temperature
changing compared to land.
• Differential heating patterns between land and water
due to water’s high heat capacity leads to seasonal
changes in atmospheric pressure cells that drive
prevailing wind patterns.
• Surface wind patterns push water and drive the major
ocean surface currents.
• The Coriolis effect then also modifies ocean current
movement such that oceans currents appear to move
at an angle to wind directions.

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Global Ocean Circulation

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 Thermohaline Circulation: The Great
Ocean Conveyer Belt
• Thermo = temperature; haline = salinity.
• Large-scale ocean circulation across the globe due
to water density changes from variation in ocean
temperature and salinity.
• Density of liquid sea water higher at colder
temperatures – molecules closer together.
• Density of solid water (ice) less than density of
liquid water (that is why ice floats!).
• Density of water with more salt is higher than
density of water with less or no salt (salt adds
additional molecules making the water heavier).
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Thermohaline Circulation: The Great
Ocean Conveyer Belt

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 Thermohaline Circulation: The Great
Ocean Conveyer Belt
• The oceans are mostly composed of warm salty
water near the surface over cold, less salty water
in the ocean depths.
• These two regions don't mix except in certain
special areas,
which creates
a large slow
current called
thermohaline
circulation.

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 Thermohaline Circulation: The Great
Ocean Conveyer Belt
• At the poles, ocean water gets very cold, forming
sea ice.
• The surrounding seawater gets saltier, because
when sea ice forms, the salt is left behind.
• As seawater gets saltier, its density increases, and
it starts to sink.
• Surface water from
nearby, is pulled in to
replace the sinking
water, which then also
cools, becomes more
salty, and sinks. 29
Thermohaline Circulation: The Great
Ocean Conveyer Belt

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Thermohaline Circulation
Circumpolar current

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Thermohaline Circulation: The Great
Ocean Conveyer Belt

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Thermohaline Circulation: The Great
Ocean Conveyer Belt

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Thermohaline Circulation: The Great
Ocean Conveyer Belt

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Thermohaline Circulation

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 Thermohaline Circulation: Discussion
(Liu et al. 2017; Chelsea 2017)

• Many climate scientists use modeling as an ecological tool

to understand how the effects of climate change may
influence different ecosystems and the communities in
which we live. What are the climate scientists who wrote
this paper concerned about with respect to climate
modeling efforts? (hint: see introduction section)

• What potential problem are the scientists who wrote this

paper concerned about with respect to the AMOC? What
could be some of the potential consequences? (hint: see
the discussion section)

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 Thermohaline Circulation: Discussion
(Liu et al. 2017; Chelsea 2017)

• The Materials and Methods section describes the

experiments that were conducted using the simulation
model. What was the treatment in each experiment? What
I mean by this is what was done to change or perturb the
simulation in order to study the problem?

• Do the authors describe the assumptions of the model they

used? If so, what are they? If not, why should they include
this information?

• What did the study conclude? Did the Washington Post

article accurately portray the study and its findings?

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 Thermohaline Circulation: Why is it
Important?
• Facilitates mixing between ocean basins.
• Helps establish global climate trends.
• Upwelling brings nutrients to photic zone making them
available to marine food web – important for habitat,
fisheries, etc.
❖ Implications for ocean’s role in
carbon sequestration.

• Climate change – influx of

freshwater from melting ice could
reverse direction of Gulf Stream
or stop it altogether.
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 Coastal Upwelling
• Deep, nutrient rich ocean water rises to surface.
• Occurs where prevailing winds blow parallel to a
coastline. Occurs off the western coasts of North and
South America.
• Tends to create a
cooler, moister
environment
(think foggy San
Francisco).
• Downwelling is
opposite process.

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 Coastal Upwelling

Upwelling:
Northern
Hemisphere

Downwelling:
Northern
Hemisphere

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Equatorial Upwelling

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 Humboldt Current
Upwelling
One of the most
productive fisheries in
the world.

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Remotely Sensed Ocean Current
Data: Downloadable at No Cost

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 Global Climate Patterns
• Large scale atmospheric and oceanic circulation
patterns establish global patterns of temperature
and precipitation.
• Ocean currents moderate air temperatures.
• Topography – higher elevations keep some areas
cooler than others at the same latitude.
• Patterns of atmospheric pressure and topography
influence precipitation
❖ Locations of Hadley, Ferrell, and polar circulation

cells suggest precipitation should be higher in

tropical latitudes and lowest around 30 degrees.
❖ Note Phoenix is at 33 degrees north!
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Gulf stream makes warmer

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Global Climate Patterns

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 great basin desert from sierra Nevada rain shadow

ocean moisture changes climate from desert expectation

30° N

deserts at locations close to expectations from Hadley cells

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