AP BIOLOGY

Detailed explanation-1: -Changes to the carbon cycle Human activities have a tremendous impact on the carbon cycle. Burning fossil fuels, changing land use, and using limestone to make concrete all transfer significant quantities of carbon into the atmosphere.

Detailed explanation-2: -Recently, people have been causing these biogeochemical cycles to change. When we cut down forests, make more factories, and drive more cars that burn fossil fuels, the way that carbon and nitrogen move around the Earth changes. These changes add more greenhouse gases in our atmosphere and this causes climate change.

Detailed explanation-3: -The three changes in the Earth’s orbit around the Sun-eccentricity, axial tilt, and precession-are collectively called ‘Milankovitch cycles’.

Detailed explanation-4: -Ocean-atmosphere interactions regularly cause climate cycles on the order of years to decades. One of the most well-known cycles is the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), an interaction between ocean temperatures and atmospheric patterns (commonly known as El Niño or its opposite effect, La Niña).