Does anyone know what mankind's effect on the water cycle is? Like, a yearly charted amount of available water on earth? Or any ideas? Please help me lol, I'm desperate!
Thanx!
2007-02-18 17:14:14 · 3 answers · asked by Anonymous in Education & Reference ➔ Homework Help
The law of conservation of mass tells us that we can't just get rid of matter. While we can bust up water into hydrogen and oxygen, we rarely do that. What matters is what we put into the water. All the carbon dioxide and many other gases that we release into the atmosphere by burning hydrocarbons and doing countless other things end up lowering the pH of water in the water cycle. When CO2 is present in the air the water that flows through that gas when it comes down to the earth in the form of rain turns into carbonic acid- at least some of it. This acid stays in the water for a long time and can eat away at many objects on earth.
Perhaps more important is the way that we have contaminated water with toxins and other pollution. This happens in a multitude of different ways- whether it be toxins leaching out of a landfill, some guy washing his car and letting the soap run into the watershed, an oil spill, or whatever. It's amazing how much crap we dump into the water cycle, really it's pretty startling.
2007-02-18 17:28:09 · answer #1 · answered by Sir Drew M 2 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Mankind's effect is the pollution we create, the trees we cut down, the chemicals we use that are destroying the ozone layer, causing water to evaporate in to the atmosphere, but not completely returning (Because of the thinned out ozone layer) It's called the "Greenhouse Effect" (
Another effect of global warming is the melting of the polar caps, but you didn't ask about that. So I'll shut up now.
2007-02-18 17:20:21 · answer #2 · answered by Havana Brown 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
http://hydro.valday.com/how_we_can_affect.shtml
2007-02-18 17:20:30 · answer #3 · answered by cmhurley64 6 · 0⤊ 0⤋