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The ocean can be described as the world's largest ecosystem and it is home for many species of marine life. Different activities carried out and caused by human beings such as global warming, ocean acidification, and pollution affect marine life and its habitats.
Due to global warming and increased glacier melt, thermohaline circulation patterns may be altered by increasing amounts of freshwater released into oceans and, therefore, changing ocean salinity. Thermohaline circulation is responsible for bringing up cold, nutrient-rich water from the depths of the ocean, a process known as upwelling .
Some climate change effects: wildfire caused by heat and dryness, bleached coral caused by ocean acidification and heating, environmental migration caused by desertification, and coastal flooding caused by storms and sea level rise. Effects of climate change are well documented and growing for Earth's natural environment and human societies. Changes to the climate system include an overall ...
With primary causes being warming ocean waters, ocean acidity, and pollution. [3] In 2008, a worldwide study estimated that 19% of the existing area of coral reefs had already been lost. [ 4 ] Only 46% of the world's reefs could be currently regarded as in good health [ 4 ] and about 60% of the world's reefs may be at risk due to destructive ...
While marine pollution can be obvious, as with the marine debris shown above, it is often the pollutants that cannot be seen that cause most harm.. Marine pollution occurs when substances used or spread by humans, such as industrial, agricultural and residential waste, particles, noise, excess carbon dioxide or invasive organisms enter the ocean and cause harmful effects there.
The report concluded that global warming of 2 °C (3.6 °F) over the preindustrial levels would threaten an estimated 5% of all the Earth's species with extinction even in the absence of the other four factors, while if the warming reached 4.3 °C (7.7 °F), 16% of the Earth's species would be threatened with extinction.
Data shows CO2 is also causing modern global warming − and an array of negative consequences − by slowing the escape of heat energy into space. CO2 can fertilize plants and also drive global ...
The size and speed of global warming is making abrupt changes in ecosystems more likely. [220] Overall, it is expected that climate change will result in the extinction of many species. [221] The oceans have heated more slowly than the land, but plants and animals in the ocean have migrated towards the colder poles faster than species on land ...