Lecture 11 The Anthroposphere

Definition
• The anthroposphere encompasses the human
population, the built environment of human, and the
influence of human activities on the Earth system.

• The Earth system is a closed system, it has finite

material resources to support finite population.

• Unrenewable: the rates of natural replenishment is

not on a humanly accessible time scale (i.e., millions
of years) – fossil fuel
• Encourage reuse, replace unrenewable to renewable
• Renewable: the resources is quickly replenished (i.e.,
seasonal time scale) - fruit
• Human depletes resources faster than their
renewal/replenish.
• Human degrade the systems on which resources
replenishment depends.
 Impacts on Geosphere - Desertification
• Desertification is the expansion of desert conditions
into previously productive land areas.

• Reasons: increasing numbers of people and

livestock in drylands, exacerbated by natural
droughts.

Advance of the Sahara Desert

• Reduced biomass (crop yield, food for livestock, over 1920–2013
fuelwood); reduction in water streamflow and
ground water depletion; advance of sand over
agriculture lands.

• A positive feedback that exacerbates

desertification:
• Desertification – vegetation cover decrease – albedo
increase – cooler ground surface – descending dry air –
reduced precipitation - desertification

https://journals.ametsoc.org/view/journals/clim/31/9/jcli-d-17-0187.1.xml
Impacts on Geosphere – Soil erosion
• Soil erosion refers to the erosion of the top layer of dirt known
as topsoil, the fertile material vital to life.

• Human activities + topography/climate/vegetation

• Human activities: deforestation (accelerated surface water
runoff; perhaps the major reason for global soil erosion), road
construction, mining, and other earth-moving activities.

• The productive soil is depleted at the rate of 7% per decade.

Deforestation and erosion. WWF. https://www.nature.com/articles/s41467-017-02142-7

Impacts on Geosphere – Waste disposal and Toxins
• Landfills: buried waste products may be mobilized
by water, which carries away harmful chemicals as
soluble substance and contaminate soil and
groundwater systems.

• Pesticide and herbicide: contaminate soil and

ground water, affect non-targeted species (e.g.,
bees population dramatic decrease), cancer and
birth defects.

• Radioactive waste: nuclear plants dispose

radioactive wastes that are highly toxic. Need to
ensure radioactive materials are isolated and safe.
• Reactor buildings at the Fukushima power plant were
damaged by hydrogen explosions caused by an
earthquake and tsunami in 2011. The tsunami knocked
out cooling systems to the reactors, three of which
melted down.
 Impacts on the Hydrosphere – surface water contamination
• Sources of contaminations: effluents from industrial
sectors, mining, logging, oil drilling and land fills.

• Cultural eutrophication: the addition of

anthropogenic pollutants (i.e., nitrogen-containing
fertilizer or phosphorus-containing detergents) to
water body, causing algal bloom -> oxygen depletion
-> other organisms die -> water turns murky and
sickly green.

• Infectious agents such as bacteria, viruses and other

disease-causing organisms – come from human and
animal wastes.

• Man-made toxic and persistent chlorinated organic

compounds, most well known is DDT (pesticide).

• Heavy metals such as cadmium, lead, arsenic and

mercury – come from mining, metallurgy, paper
manufacturing, refining.
Impacts on the Hydrosphere
• Dams and Diversion
• pros: clean hydropower, flood control,
irrigation
• cons: reduced sediment buildup, delta
erosion, damage ecosystems

• Groundwater contamination
• difficult to detect, control and clean up
• major contaminants: toxic organic compounds
from petroleum, untreated sewage and
agriculture chemicals. saline contamination
caused by the intrusion of seawater into
coastal aquifers.
• passive remediation: rely on natural process
to clean the groundwater
• active remediation: inject O2 to accelerate
decomposition, pumping water to the surface
for treatment and re-inject into the aquifer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_6xlNyWPpB8
 Impacts on the Atmosphere
• Long-range transport of pollutant
• Atmospheric transport is the main reason why
anthropogenic pollutants are virtually
everywhere on earth.
• Dry deposition: settle to the ground as tiny solid
particles.
• Wet deposition: settle to the ground as
dissolved compounds in rainfall.
• Dependent on chemical and physical properties,
topography and weather.

• Stratospheric Ozone depletion

• Ozone hole above Antarctica (Lecture on the
atmosphere).
• Chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) -> upper
atmosphere -> sunlight breaks CFCs into chlorine
monoxide (CIO) -> each CIO destroys 100,000
ozone molecules
• Sunlight and very cold temperature (-80 C) is the
key to the destruction process -> happens in
Antarctica.
Impacts on the Atmosphere
• Photochemical smog
• A mixture of pollutants that are formed when
nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds
(VOCs) react to sunlight, creating a brown haze
above cities. It tends to occur more often in
summer, because that is when we have the most
sunlight.
• sunlight + heat + NOx + carbon compounds (from
fossil fuel burning) -> O3 in the troposphere that is
detrimental to human health.
• O3 and N2O are greenhouse gases, increase in the
past decade.

• Acid precipitation
• refers to the rain that has a pH less than that of
natural rain. Natural rain pH is 5.6. Commonly has
pH in the range of 3 to 5.
• Acids form in the atmosphere when precursor
chemicals interact with water. The most common
precursors are CO2, SOx (sulfur oxides, such as SO2
and SO3) and NOx (nitrous oxide). Their
concentrations have increased as a result of
anthropogenic emissions.
• Downwind of industrial areas is affected the most.
 Impacts on the Biosphere – Loss of forests
• Deforestation is a major type of land use
change.
• reasons: commercial logging, make room for
agriculture, fuelwood production,
urbanization.

• Impacts biodiversity, soils, water cycling and

biogeochemical cyclings.

• Europe went through intensive land use

change in medieval, with a boost in
population
Net carbon flux due to land use for the period from 1850 and 2005
• North American peak in land use change is
during western movement (late 1800s)

• Currently, the tropics is undergoing the

strongest land use change in the world
(mainly deforestation)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBTlIaf12-4
Impacts on the Biosphere
• Empty nets
• overfishing, environmental change, harmfully
fishing techniques (e.g., drift nets, trawls)
• 80% of the world’s fish stocks are now fully
exploited, overexploited or depleted.

• Coral bleaching
• coral reef, one of the most productive and
sensitive marine ecosystems. Formed by
colonies of tiny animals, which coexist with
photosynthetic algae (zooxanthellae).
• clear water + temperature > 18.
• coastal develop -> sediment -> no light ->
zooxanthellae leaves -> coral bleaching.
• Acidification of ocean can also destroy coral
reefs (CaCO3).
Elevated species loss which
has markedly accelerated over
• Loss of biodiversity the past couple of hundred
• the sixth great extinction years.
• habitat loss and fragmentation due to human
activities
Anthropogenic role in global climate change

Major greenhouse gases:

1. CO2, 419 ppm, lifetime 100 years
2. CH4, 1860 ppb, 21 times stronger than CO2,
shorter resident time, mostly comes from
agriculture (cattle No.1 sources) and wetland
(anaerobic environment).
3. N2O, 332 ppb, 120 times stronger than CO2,
long resident time, mostly comes from
agriculture soil management, fossil fuel burning,
biomass burning.

IPCC AR6 TS. Figure TS 9

 Climate change - Rising temperature and intensified water cycle

According to the NOAA 2019 Global Climate

Summary, the combined land and ocean
temperature has increased at an average rate of
0.07°C (0.13°F) per decade since 1880; however,
the average rate of increase since 1981 (0.18°C /
0.32°F) is more than twice as great

Precipitation change become more extreme – a

common notion is dry get drier, wet get wetter (but
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E2j0pu_tM2Q it is under debate now as some negative feedback
https://interactive-atlas.ipcc.ch/ might mitigate the impact)
 Climate change impacts
• Changes in the hydrosphere – increased evaporation from water
surfaces; enhanced precipitation in the tropics but reduced in
interior land; rising sea level; coastal floods; spawn more
powerful hurricane; disrupt the global thermohaline circulation.
• Changes in the biosphere – ecosystems influenced and adjust to
shifted climate; forest and other biome boundary change;
increased droughts and water deficits for some continental
agriculture land; high latitude longer-growing seasons.
• Changes in the cryosphere – recession of mountain glaciers;
warm air cause more precipitation on ice sheet; shrinkage of sea
ices; thawing of perennially frozen ground
• Changes in the geosphere – increased decomposition rate; break
down of gas hydrate in ocean sediments and frozen ground (CH4).
• Feedbacks – positive feedback (sea ice), negative feedback (CO2
fertilization)