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Loss of Biodiversity and Climate Change

Introduction

Long-term changes in the atmospheric concentration of greenhouse gases—notably carbon dioxide (CO2), methane, and nitrous oxide—due to human activities has altered the radiative forcing of the atmosphere and its energy balance. The physical impacts of these disruptions, known collectively as climate change, are varied but present across the globe. Due to the central importance of the atmosphere in all global environmental cycles, the symptoms and effects of climate change are potentially present anywhere on Earth (Haigh, 696). Study of these issues requires practitioners to maintain a holistic view of global biogeochemical interactions. The primary feature of climate change effects, as increased energy is expressed in the atmosphere, is less predictability and greater oscillations in environmental system behavior.

Ocean Changes

Global sea level has risen by more than 3 millimeters per year in the past decade, and it is uncertain if this rate will remain constant or increase. Sea-level rise is caused by oceanic thermal expansion and the melting of the world's ice caps and glaciers. As the majority of the world's surface is covered by water, warmer air temperatures are warming the ocean as well. However, due to the high heat capacity of water and the layered nature of the ocean, with little mixing of surface and deep water, ocean warming is a slow process that will occur over the next century-to-millennia time-frame. If temperatures stabilized today, the ocean would continue warming for hundreds of years as deep-water mixing slowly occurs (Forest, 497). Deep-ocean measurements have measured steady temperature increases throughout the world's ocean basins.

Warmer water is less dense than cold water, and thermal expansion of water has led to increasing sea-level rise. An increase in water temperature also lowers the ability of water to retain dissolved oxygen and carbon dioxide (CO2), so that biological systems are stressed due to less oxygen for fish and other organisms and warm water releases even more CO2 into the atmosphere. However, increased freshwater flow from melting glaciers in Greenland and other locations will lower ocean salinity in the high latitudes at areas of ocean multilevel mixing. Lower salinity allows water to absorb more CO2. This may be sufficient to offset CO2 release from ocean warming in other areas but will lead to increased acidification of the oceans.

CO2 reacts with water to form carbonic acid (used in carbonated beverages), which has a detrimental impact on calcium carbonate ...