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Effects of Ocean and Coastal Acidification on Ecosystems:

Traditionally, impacts from wastewater pollution have been associated with human health, but the detrimental effects of wastewater pollution on marine life-and the indirect impacts they have on people-cannot be overlooked.

Wastewater transports pathogens, nutrients, contaminants, and solids into the ocean that can cause coral bleaching and disease and mortality for coral, fish, and shellfish.

Wastewater pollution can also alter ocean temperature, pH, salinity, and oxygen levels, disrupting biological processes and physical environments essential to marine life.

 

In addition to having a large influence on global heat transport and precipitation, the oceans are comprised of diverse habitats that support a wealth of marine wildlife. Such climate change will create novel challenges for coastal and marine ecosystems that are already stressed from human development, land-use change, environmental pollution, and over-fishing. «Coastal and Marine Ecosystems & Global Climate Change» is the eighth in a series of Pew Center reports examining the potential impacts of climate change on the U. environment. It details the likely impacts of climate change over the next century on U. Meanwhile, sea-level rise will gradually inundate coastal lands.

Coastal wetlands may migrate inland with rising sea levels, but only if they are not obstructed by human development. Climate change is likely to alter patterns of wind and water circulation in the ocean environment. Such changes may influence the vertical movement of ocean waters, increasing or decreasing the availability of essential nutrients and oxygen to marine organisms. Changes in ocean circulation patterns can also cause substantial changes in regional ocean and land temperatures and the geographic distributions of marine species.

Critical coastal ecosystems such as wetlands, estuaries, and coral reefs are particularly vulnerable to climate change. Such ecosystems are among the most biologically productive environments in the world. Their existence at the interface between the terrestrial and marine environment exposes them to a wide variety of human and natural stressors. The added burden of climate change may further degrade these valuable ecosystems, threatening their ecological sustainability and the flow of goods and services they provide to human populations.

The authors and the Pew Center gratefully acknowledge the input of Drs. The Pew Center would also like to thank Joel Smith of Stratus Consulting for his assistance in the management of this Environmental Impacts Series.

 

Endocrine Disruptors

Endocrine disruptors—compounds which impact the endocrine system—are a particularly concerning type of CEC. Research has begun to show the ways that these pollutants cause harm to marine life:
Synthetic hormones and endocrine disruptors—like estrogen from birth control pills or parabens found in soaps—can impair reproductivity and contribute to aggressive tendencies in fish.

Summary

He predicted changes may have a significant effect on coastal ecosystems, especially estuaries and coral reefs, which are relatively shallow and currently under stress because of human population growth and coastal developments. Significant environmental factors that affect the structure and function of estuarine and marine systems and that are expected to be part of global climate change include temperature, sea-level rise, the availability of water and associated nutrients from precipitation and runoff from land, wind patterns, and storminess. Temperature, in particular, influences organism biology, affects dissolved oxygen concentrations in water, and plays a direct role in sea-level rise and in major patterns of coastal and oceanic circulation. Predictions of the effects of climate change on coastal and marine ecosystems are associated with varying degrees of confidence.

There is less confidence regarding temperature’s influence on interactions among organisms, and even less as to its effects on water circulation patterns. It is also difficult to predict the effects of climate change on precipitation, wind patterns, and the frequency and intensity of storms in kayaks for sale. Many species are sensitive to temperatures just a few degrees higher than those they usually experience in nature. A rise in temperature as small as 1oC could have important and rapid effects on mortality of some organisms and on their geographic distributions.

Given that temperature increases in the coming century are predicted to exceed 1oC, the major biological change resulting from higher temperatures in U. coastal waters may be altered distributions of coastal organisms along the east and west coasts. The geographic ranges of heat-tolerant species such as commercial shrimp on the East Coast may expand northward, while the southern range boundaries of heat-intolerant organisms such as soft clams and winter flounder may retreat northward. The more mobile species should be able to adjust their ranges over time, but less mobile species may not. Such distributional changes would result in varying and novel mixes of organisms in a region, leaving species to adjust to new predators, prey, parasites, diseases, and competitors.

Some species would flourish and others would not, and we have no way of predicting at present which species would prevail. Fisheries would also be affected as some species are lost from a region or as others arrive. Warmer conditions would support faster growth or a longer growing season for aquaculture species, but might become too warm for some species in a particular region, requiring a change in the species being cultured. Because water expands and glaciers melt as temperatures warm, higher temperatures would raise sea levels, inundating coastal lands and eroding susceptible shores.

Climate change may decrease or increase precipitation, thereby altering coastal and estuarine ecosystems. If upwelling is slowed by changes in wind and temperature, phytoplankton production could be lowered. Where upwelling increases as a result of climate change, productivity should also increase. In some coastal regions, alongshore wind stress and buoyancy-driven density differences help produce water movements that transport larval fish and invertebrates to nurseries, such as in estuaries.

Climate-related changes in these circulation patterns that hinder such transport might alter the species composition of coastal ecosystems with self-safety life vest in Dubai . Increases in the severity of coastal storms and storm surges would have serious implications for the well-being of fishery and aquaculture industries, as has been demonstrated by the effects of recent intense hurricanes along the U. Most ecosystems can recover rapidly from hurricanes, but the anthropogenic alteration of coastal habitats may increase the ecological damage associated with more severe storms. The immense area and the modest extent of our knowledge of the open ocean hamper predictions of how ocean systems will respond to climate change. Nevertheless, it is clear that increased temperature or freshwater input to the upper layers of the ocean results in increased density stratification, which affects ocean productivity.

Open ocean productivity is also affected by natural interannual climate variability associated with large-scale climate phenomena such as the El Niño-Southern Oscillation. Climate-driven changes in the intensity or timing of any of these phenomena could lead to marked changes in water column mixing and stratification and, ultimately, a reorganization of the ecosystems involved, for better or worse. Increased CO2 concentrations lower ocean pH, which in turn changes ocean carbonate chemistry. On reefs near low-lying coastal areas, sea-level rise would likely increase coastal erosion rates, thus degrading water quality and reducing light penetration necessary for photosynthesis and increasing sedimentation that smothers and stresses coral animals.