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5 Earth as a Living Planet
• Our Goals for Learning
• What unique features on Earth are important
for human life?
• How might human activity change our planet?
• What makes a planet habitable?
What unique features of Earth are
important for life?
1) Surface liquid water
2) Atmospheric oxygen
3) Plate tectonics
4) Climate stability
What unique features of Earth are
important to human life?
Earth’s distance from the
1) Surface liquid water Sun and moderate
2) Atmospheric oxygen greenhouse effect make
liquid water possible
3) Plate tectonics
4) Climate stability
What unique features of Earth are
important to human life?
1) Surface liquid water
2) Atmospheric oxygen
3) Plate tectonics PHOTOSYNTHESIS
4) Climate stability (plant life) is required to
make high concentrations
of O2, which produces the
protective layer of O3.
What unique features of Earth are
important to human life?
1) Surface liquid water
2) Atmospheric oxygen
Plate tectonics are
3) Plate tectonics an important step
4) Climate stability in the carbon
dioxide cycle.
The Carbon Dioxide Cycle
What unique features of Earth are
important to human life?
1) Surface liquid water
2) Atmospheric oxygen
3) Plate tectonics
4) Climate stability The CO2 cycle acts like a
thermostat for the Earth’s
temperature.
These unique features are intertwined:
• plate tectonics creates climate stability
• climate stability allows liquid water
• liquid water is necessary for life
• life is necessary for atmospheric oxygen
How many other connections between these
can you think of?
How might human activity affect
Earth’s climate?
Earth’s ice ages end
as oceans freeze over
and volcanoes release
CO2 into the
atmosphere
Human activity is increasing the concentration of
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, which may
strengthen the greenhouse effect and lead to global
warming.
What makes a planet habitable?
• Located at an optimal distance from the Sun
for liquid water to exist.
What makes a planet habitable?
• Large enough for geological activity to
release & retain water and atmosphere.
Planetary Destiny
Earth is habitable
because it is large
enough to remain
geologically active
and at the right
distance from the
Sun so oceans could
form.
What have we learned?
• What unique features of Earth are important
for life?
• Unique features of Earth on which we depend for survival
are
• (1) surface liquid water, made possible by Earth’s
moderate temperature;
• (2) atmospheric oxygen, a product of photosynthetic life;
• (3) plate tectonics, driven by internal heat; and
• (4) climate stability, a result of the carbon dioxide cycle,
which in turn requires plate tectonics.
What have we learned?
• How might human
activity change our
planet?
• Ozone depletion can leave
surface life more vulnerable to
dangerous solar ultraviolet
radiation, and the high rate of
extinctions could have
unknown consequences. The
human release of greenhouse
gases into the atmosphere is
already causing global warming
and certainly would affect the
climate if it continues.
What have we learned?
• What makes a planet habitable?
• We can trace Earth’s habitability to its relatively large
size and its distance from the Sun.
– Its size keeps the internal heat that allowed volcanic
outgassing to lead to our oceans and atmosphere, and also
drives the plate tectonics that helps to regulate our climate
through the carbon dioxide cycle.
– Its distance from the Sun is neither too close nor too far,
thereby allowing liquid water to exist on Earth’s surface.