Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Impacts of Global Warming
on Biogeochemical Cycles in Natural Waters
Khan M. G. Mostofa, Cong-qiang Liu, Kunshan Gao, Shijie Li,
Davide Vione and M. Abdul Mottaleb
1 Introduction
The main source of energy that drives the dynamics of Earth's outer spheres,
including its climate, is unquestionably the Sun (Kandel and Viollier
2005
).
Therefore, electromagnetic radiation enormously dominates the energy exchange
between the Earth and its cosmic environment (Kandel and Viollier
2005
). At a
radiative balance of 235 W m
−
2
, the Earth would have an average surface tem-
perature of only
−
19 °C, resulting in a perpetually frozen planet (Ruddiman
2001
). Fortunately, the planetary atmosphere traps sufficient long-wave energy
that is reradiated by the warm Earth's surface (greenhouse effect) to raise the sur-
face temperature by approximately 33 °C to a more hospitable average of 14 °C
(Ferguson and Veizer
2007
). The greenhouse effect is efficiently caused by the
