How Do Natural Processes Affect Earth's Land and Oceans?

Understanding how do natural processes affect earth's lands and oceans is essential. Every day, the earth is experiencing multiple ongoing changes. A variety of natural processes are constantly happening around you, and consequently affecting the earth itself in various different ways. This is part of an organic cycle, and whether the effects are considered positive or negative by the human race, the fact is that they’re part of how things work. The process of change and renewal is a key part of understanding the functions of the earth itself.

Two examples of basic natural processes, as well as their consequent effects and how those natural processes affect earth's land and oceans are the:

• Carbon Cycle
• Greenhouse Effect

Carbon Cycle

One of the most important natural processes taking place on the planet, the carbon cycle is the process by which carbon atoms are “recycled” and rotated to become everything that makes up life on earth.

A common carbon cycle works as follows:

• A plant absorbs carbon dioxide, which is naturally found in the earth’s atmosphere.
• The plant uses the carbon dioxide in order to grow – the process of photosynthesis is how the plant converts carbon dioxide into sugars, using the heat of the sun and water from the ground to help. A human may then harvest the plant and eat it.
• The human absorbs the carbon atoms in the plant into his own body as nutrition, and his body grows and thrives. It also breathes – and when he breathes out, the human releases carbon dioxide back into the atmosphere.
• If the human doesn’t harvest the plant and it dies in the first winter freeze, it will release carbon dioxide as it decomposes, just as the human will when one day he passes away.

What we call a carbon cycle, then, isn’t technically a cycle, at least not in the traditional sense of a repetitive circle. There are actually various branches and directions the carbon cycle can take.

The point is that carbon is constantly recycling and moving through the earth and its organisms, taking one form and then another; the carbon that makes up your body has been around for as long as the earth has been in existence.

Greenhouse Effect

A natural process that helps keep the earth heated to a level that sustains life, the greenhouse effect is caused by gases that build up in the atmosphere and contain heat from the sun, preventing it from bouncing back out into space.

These gases, composed of carbon dioxide, water vapor, and methane, create an invisible “ceiling” of sorts above the earth, and rays from the sun penetrate it in order to reach us. Once the sun bounces off the earth’s surface, longwave radiation from the heat is absorbed by these gases, thus remaining in the atmosphere and effectively controlling the temperature of the planet. 

Natural processes are occurring all the time, around us on every level. Understanding the basis of what is happening and how those natural processes affect land and oceans is key to understanding how the earth functions as well as what role we play in our existing ecosystem.