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The climate crisis
Published in Sarah Sayce, Sara Wilkinson, Gillian Armstrong, Samantha Organ, Resilient Building Retrofits, 2023
Sarah Sayce, Sara Wilkinson, Samantha Organ
Nature is not only essential for human life, but it is also recognised as important for the quality of life (Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services, IPBES, 2019). Globally, biodiversity is declining at an unprecedented rate, and the rate of species extinction is accelerating (IPBES, 2019). Although climate change is only one pressure on our wildlife, it is recognised as playing an important role. Indeed, without careful management, rapid climate change is likely to contribute to the extinction of critically endangered species and to other species becoming even rarer. Bernstein et al. (2007) estimated that globally a quarter of mammals and 12% of birds are at significant risk of extinction. Carbon emissions have led to increases in seawater acidity, known as ‘ocean acidification’. Climate change–driven ocean acidification is resulting in rapid changes to global ecosystems and a threat to marine life (Greenhill et al., 2020). Biodiversity loss cannot be resolved without addressing climate change, and climate change cannot be resolved without addressing biodiversity.
The 2:1 Resilience Factor, Education for Mitigation and Adaptation
Published in Velma I. Grover, Amani Alfarra, Water, Sustainable Development and the Nexus, 2019
William Humber, Cheryl Bradbee
The challenge as citizens has become one of modifying the environmental impacts of our lifestyles with particular emphasis on reducing greenhouse gases which currently, and long into the future, will abet climate unpredictability and ocean acidification. Reducing these emissions has become an urgent public priority, alongside means for contributing to bio-capacity enhancement. Or at least this is the generally held scientific conclusion of over 95% of that community. The challenge as educators is how to communicate the problem and potential solutions to a general student population destined for a wide variety of job outcomes. Part of the task for educators is to choose how much consideration should be given to the outliers from the consensus point of view. To suggest this is a "one or the other, or a 50/50" disagreement is to unfairly load the dice in favor of those outliers whose conclusions might be one of nuance rather than opposition, or who themselves are proprietors of self-interest funding or business opportunity.
Addressing climate change and its impacts on the world ocean
Published in Mark Zacharias, Jeff Ardron, Marine Policy, 2019
The primary impact of ocean acidification is on those organisms that produce calcium carbonate (Ca CO2) shells and skeletons. While different organisms that rely on calcification experience different responses to decreasing pH under varying ocean conditions, overall those organisms relying on calcification must spend more energy on shell development, which means less energy devoted to reproduction, defence etc. Studies in ocean areas throughout the world have shown decreases in shell thickness, particularly over the past several decades. Fewer such organisms could mean that the global ‘carbon pump’ is weakened, with the ocean sequestering less carbon in its sediments. The effects of increasing pH on marine ecosystems are still largely unknown, but already some unexpected results have emerged, such as some fish becoming less fearful of (or even attracted to) predators and the slightly increased transmission of sound in an already noisy ocean.
Climate change adaptation through an integrative lens in Aotearoa New Zealand
Published in Journal of the Royal Society of New Zealand, 2023
Judy Lawrence, Anita Wreford, Paula Blackett, David Hall, Alistair Woodward, Shaun Awatere, Mary E. Livingston, Cate Macinnis-Ng, Susan Walker, Joanna Fountain, Mark John Costello, Anne-Gaelle E. Ausseil, Michael S. Watt, Sam M. Dean, Nicholas A. Cradock-Henry, Christian Zammit, Taciano L. Milfont
The seas around New Zealand are undergoing similar changes to those reported elsewhere in the world. While ocean acidification is a great threat to many marine species, shellfish and habitat-forming seabed communities, the greater threat is from rising temperatures (Law et al. 2017; Cummings et al. 2021). In particular, the abundance and geographic distribution of fish populations and other kaimoana on which commercial, non-commercial fishers and iwi depend, are changing and maximum body size is reducing in concert with ocean warming (Cheung and Frölicher 2020; Lavin et al. 2022; Dunn 2022a, 2022b). Managing wild-caught fisheries catch levels under the current Harvest Strategy Standard assumes that environmental conditions show no trend, even though conditions differ annually (MPI 2008). This assumption can no longer hold true under a changing climate. Understanding the point at which the sustainability of fish catches is affected by the changing marine environment is necessary for adaptation (Lavin et al. 2022).
Copernicus Marine Service Ocean State Report, Issue 4
Published in Journal of Operational Oceanography, 2020
Karina von Schuckmann, Pierre-Yves Le Traon, Neville Smith, Ananda Pascual, Samuel Djavidnia, Jean-Pierre Gattuso, Marilaure Grégoire, Glenn Nolan, Signe Aaboe, Enrique Álvarez Fanjul, Lotfi Aouf, Roland Aznar, T. H. Badewien, Arno Behrens, Maristella Berta, Laurent Bertino, Jeremy Blackford, Giorgio Bolzon, Federica Borile, Marine Bretagnon, Robert J.W. Brewin, Donata Canu, Paola Cessi, Stefano Ciavatta, Bertrand Chapron, Thi Tuyet Trang Chau, Frédéric Chevallier, Boriana Chtirkova, Stefania Ciliberti, James R. Clark, Emanuela Clementi, Clément Combot, Eric Comerma, Anna Conchon, Giovanni Coppini, Lorenzo Corgnati, Gianpiero Cossarini, Sophie Cravatte, Marta de Alfonso, Clément de Boyer Montégut, Christian De Lera Fernández, Francisco Javier de los Santos, Anna Denvil-Sommer, Álvaro de Pascual Collar, Paulo Alonso Lourenco Dias Nunes, Valeria Di Biagio, Massimiliano Drudi, Owen Embury, Pierpaolo Falco, Odile Fanton d’Andon, Luis Ferrer, David Ford, H. Freund, Manuel García León, Marcos García Sotillo, José María García-Valdecasas, Philippe Garnesson, Gilles Garric, Florent Gasparin, Marion Gehlen, Ana Genua-Olmedo, Gerhard Geyer, Andrea Ghermandi, Simon A. Good, Jérôme Gourrion, Eric Greiner, Annalisa Griffa, Manuel González, Annalisa Griffa, Ismael Hernández-Carrasco, Stéphane Isoard, John J. Kennedy, Susan Kay, Anton Korosov, Kaari Laanemäe, Peter E. Land, Thomas Lavergne, Paolo Lazzari, Jean-François Legeais, Benedicte Lemieux, Bruno Levier, William Llovel, Vladyslav Lyubartsev, Pierre-Yves Le Traon, Vidar S. Lien, Leonardo Lima, Pablo Lorente, Julien Mader, Marcello G. Magaldi, Ilja Maljutenko, Antoine Mangin, Carlo Mantovani, Veselka Marinova, Simona Masina, Elena Mauri, J. Meyerjürgens, Alexandre Mignot, Robert McEwan, Carlos Mejia, Angélique Melet, Milena Menna, Benoît Meyssignac, Alexis Mouche, Baptiste Mourre, Malte Müller, Giulio Notarstefano, Alejandro Orfila, Silvia Pardo, Elisaveta Peneva, Begoña Pérez-Gómez, Coralie Perruche, Monika Peterlin, Pierre-Marie Poulain, Nadia Pinardi, Yves Quilfen, Urmas Raudsepp, Richard Renshaw, Adèle Révelard, Emma Reyes-Reyes, M. Ricker, Pablo Rodríguez-Rubio, Paz Rotllán, Eva Royo Gelabert, Anna Rubio, Inmaculada Ruiz-Parrado, Shubha Sathyendranath, Jun She, Karina von Schuckmann, Cosimo Solidoro, Emil V. Stanev, Joanna Staneva, Andrea Storto, Jian Su, Tayebeh Tajalli Bakhsh, Gavin H. Tilstone, Joaquín Tintoré, Cristina Toledano, Jean Tournadre, Benoit Tranchant, Rivo Uiboupin, Arnaud Valcarcel, Nadezhda Valcheva, Nathalie Verbrugge, Mathieu Vrac, J.-O. Wolff, Enrico Zambianchi, O. Zielinski, Ann-Sofie Zinck, Serena Zunino
Statement of main outcome: Since the onset of the industrial era the ocean took up about 28% of the excess CO2 emitted to the atmosphere by human activities. While the ecosystem service ‘carbon sequestration’ provided by the world oceans mitigates global warming, it also results in profound changes of seawater chemistry referred to as ocean acidification. Carbon dioxide is a weak acid that reacts with water in a suite of reactions that lead to a decrease in pH. Ocean acidification is thus a direct consequence of CO2 uptake by the ocean. Hence, this section presents and discusses the temporal evolution of the global carbon sink, the driver of ocean acidification, and of surface ocean pH from 2001 to 2016. Both time series correspond to novel Ocean Monitoring Indicators released in 2019 by CMEMS. The ocean carbon sink increased over the period of reconstruction at a rate of 0.08 ± 0.1 PgC yr−1, mirrored by a negative trend in global mean pH of 0.0017 ± 0.0002 pH units.
Copernicus Marine Service Ocean State Report
Published in Journal of Operational Oceanography, 2018
Karina von Schuckmann, Pierre-Yves Le Traon, Neville Smith, Ananda Pascual, Pierre Brasseur, Katja Fennel, Samy Djavidnia, Signe Aaboe, Enrique Alvarez Fanjul, Emmanuelle Autret, Lars Axell, Roland Aznar, Mario Benincasa, Abderahim Bentamy, Fredrik Boberg, Romain Bourdallé-Badie, Bruno Buongiorno Nardelli, Vittorio E. Brando, Clément Bricaud, Lars-Anders Breivik, Robert J.W. Brewin, Arthur Capet, Adrien Ceschin, Stefania Ciliberti, Gianpiero Cossarini, Marta de Alfonso, Alvaro de Pascual Collar, Jos de Kloe, Julie Deshayes, Charles Desportes, Marie Drévillon, Yann Drillet, Riccardo Droghei, Clotilde Dubois, Owen Embury, Hélène Etienne, Claudia Fratianni, Jesús García Lafuente, Marcos Garcia Sotillo, Gilles Garric, Florent Gasparin, Riccardo Gerin, Simon Good, Jérome Gourrion, Marilaure Grégoire, Eric Greiner, Stéphanie Guinehut, Elodie Gutknecht, Fabrice Hernandez, Olga Hernandez, Jacob Høyer, Laura Jackson, Simon Jandt, Simon Josey, Mélanie Juza, John Kennedy, Zoi Kokkini, Gerasimos Korres, Mariliis Kõuts, Priidik Lagemaa, Thomas Lavergne, Bernard le Cann, Jean-François Legeais, Benedicte Lemieux-Dudon, Bruno Levier, Vidar Lien, Ilja Maljutenko, Fernando Manzano, Marta Marcos, Veselka Marinova, Simona Masina, Elena Mauri, Michael Mayer, Angelique Melet, Frédéric Mélin, Benoit Meyssignac, Maeva Monier, Malte Müller, Sandrine Mulet, Cristina Naranjo, Giulio Notarstefano, Aurélien Paulmier, Begoña Pérez Gomez, Irene Pérez Gonzalez, Elisaveta Peneva, Coralie Perruche, K. Andrew Peterson, Nadia Pinardi, Andrea Pisano, Silvia Pardo, Pierre-Marie Poulain, Roshin P. Raj, Urmas Raudsepp, Michaelis Ravdas, Rebecca Reid, Marie-Hélène Rio, Stefano Salon, Annette Samuelsen, Michela Sammartino, Simone Sammartino, Anne Britt Sandø, Rosalia Santoleri, Shubha Sathyendranath, Jun She, Simona Simoncelli, Cosimo Solidoro, Ad Stoffelen, Andrea Storto, Tanguy Szerkely, Susanne Tamm, Steffen Tietsche, Jonathan Tinker, Joaquín Tintore, Ana Trindade, Daphne van Zanten, Luc Vandenbulcke, Anton Verhoef, Nathalie Verbrugge, Lena Viktorsson, Karina von Schuckmann, Sarah L. Wakelin, Anna Zacharioudaki, Hao Zuo
The carbon flux between the atmosphere and ocean (Section 1.7) is an essential parameter for both the climate and the ocean systems. Superimposed on natural long-term changes (Lüthi et al. 2008), the Earth has experienced a rapid and unprecedented anthropogenic increase of atmospheric CO2 concentrations since the beginning of the industrial era (IPCC 2013). On the one hand, the uptake of 26% of the atmospheric CO2 by the ocean (Le Quéré et al. 2016) is buffering the impacts of anthropogenic CO2 emissions in the atmosphere, but on the other hand, this increase of oceanic CO2 is the main driver of contemporary ocean acidification.