Coastal Ecosystem and Global Climate Change

Coastal Ecosystem and Global Climate Change
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Abstract
As Roger Revelle, a renowned scientific researcher of his times, publicly speculated about the expected effects of greenhouse in the Twenty-First century and received a lot of criticism from other scientists and the public. Before 1950s, there were barely any worries related to the impacts of global warming, which is also part of the global climate change on the coastal ecosystem. Looking back, it is possible that most of the critics have changed their minds about the effects due to the current trend on global climate change. The human activities that contributed to global climate change initially seemed like good and developmental ideas, which were to bring human kinds great benefits. However, in the Nineteen Sixties, various scientists realized the existence of long-range problems that firstly concentrated on the rise of sea level as well as threat to supplies of food. As the research progressed, more items were added gradually to the list that included the ecosystem degradation as well as threatening human health. The field experts majoring in economics, forestry and even national securities put great efforts of assessing the level of possible consequences. It was hard to make solid predictions because of the complexity involved in the global system and the differences in regions, as well as the ways in which human society would have adapted to the changes. However, the combined efforts of various scientists and new technologies in developmental research of the Twenty-First century will help in answering the following three questions:
What are the effects of global climate change on the coastal ecosystem?
In which ways has the global change and extreme events weakened the coastal ecosystem?
How can sustainable development be achieved to protect the coastal ecosystem from global change?
Coastal Ecosystem and Global Climate Change
The oceans of the world cover an estimation of seventy percent of the surface of the earth. This indicates that water is very significant to the global surroundings. The oceans have a great impact on global heat precipitation and transport which include various habitats responsible for supporting a wealth of oceanic wildlife. In addition, oceans offer human beings with a collection of services and goods such as recreational opportunities, foods, as well as transportation avenues. However, current scientific evidence has shown that gases that emanate from greenhouse caused by human activities are likely to result to significant alterations in the global climate in the twenty-first century (Rabalais, Turner, Díaz & Justić, 2009). The climate change is likely to form fresh challenges for marine and coastal ecosystems, which are already showing signs of being stressed through human development, increased environmental population, land-use change, and over-fishing. Understanding these implications of Global alterations for coastal ecosystem will help to come up with sustainable development measures.
Effects of Global Climate Change on Coastal Ecosystem
The changes in temperature within marine and coastal ecosystems have manipulated the metabolism of organism, changing ecological processes as the species interactions and productivity. Species are usually adapted to a certain range of environmental temperature and when the changes in temperature start taking place, their geographic distributions tend to contract or expand. This forms a new combination of species likely to interact in unpredictable manners. In this case, the species that become incapable of competing or migrating with the others for resources tend to face global or local extinction. Alterations in the rise of sea level and precipitation bring about significant effects for the balance of water within the coastal ecosystems. On the other hand, the decrease or increase of runoff and precipitation can also increase the danger of drought or coastal flooding. The rise of sea-level slowly inundate the coastal lands, while the coastal wetlands migrate inland with the sea levels rising and this happens only if human development do not obstruct them (Ramanathan, 2010).
Moreover, the change of climate alters the water circulation and wind patterns within the ocean environment. These kinds of alterations manipulate the vertical motion of ocean waters, which either decreases or increases the availability of necessary oxygen and nutrients to the marine organisms. In addition, alterations in the circulation patterns of the ocean are likely to cause considerable changes within the land temperatures and Regional Ocean, as well as the geographic supplies of marine species. The vital coastal ecosystems that include the estuaries, wetlands, as well as coral reefs are believed to be vulnerable to a change in climate. These ecosystems are usually some of the environments that are most biologically productive in the globe. The existence of the ecosystems at the interface that exist between the marine and terrestrial environment renders them to an expounded diversity of human and natural stressors (Ramanathan, 2010). The continuous burden of the change in climate has further contributed in degrading the valuable ecosystems and threatening their natural sustainability, as well as the goods and services flow that they offer to the human population. Since the beginning of life on earth, alterations of the global climate have affected the supply of organisms and their interactions.
Furthermore, more drastic changes are likely to occur from the human-induced additions in the atmospheric absorption of the gases of greenhouse, which are expected to result to faster alterations in the climate of the earth. In the case such incident occurs, high ranges of change might occur to either local or global extinction of some species. This will further lead to changes of the distribution of species will result to main alterations in their relations with the others. Other changes might include modification of the energy flow as well as materials cycling within ecosystems (Golubiewski, Redman, Wu, Bai & Briggs, 2008). The changes that have been predicted might have very significant impacts on the marine and coastal ecosystems, especially in coral reefs and estuaries. These are moderately shallow as well as under stress currently due to the growth of human population and coastal developments. Important factors of the environment that usually affect the formation and purpose of marine and estuarine systems and these are projected to be fraction of the change of global climate. These include the temperature, the rise of sea level, the presence of water as well as related nutrients extracted from runoff and precipitation from land, storminess and wind patterns. Particularly, temperature itself manipulates the biology of organism and affects the dissolved concentrations of oxygen in water. In addition, the temperature acts directly towards the rise of sea level as well as main patterns of oceanic and coastal circulation. There are varying degrees about the confidence of the anticipated outcome from various people in the research. However, many researchers have confidence that the increase in temperature will probably affect animal and plant physiology, distributions, abundances, concentrations of aquatic oxygen as well as sea level. Moreover, there is confidence in the expected outcome of the rise of sea levels on the thin continental margins that include shoreline erosion, flooding of wetlands, as well as developed storm surges. There is a likelihood of that the influence of temperature on the relations among organisms and its likely to cause effects on the patterns of water circulation. The effects of the change in climate on precipitation are quite challenging to predict and the patterns of wind, the intensity and frequency of storms, among others. Numerous species become sensitive to temperatures even though it’s just higher than usual by few degrees. There is a specific temperature for various kinds of species and the increase of the same may cause damage, transfer, or unusual reactions. If the temperature rises even with one degree Celsius, it could bring significant and rapid outcomes on the mortality of organisms together with their geographic distributions. The forthcoming centuries are expected to have increased temperature that is predicted to ex...