Describe one (1) way that scientists use the ocean to monitor climate change. Th
ID: 231452 • Letter: D
Question
Describe one (1) way that scientists use the ocean to monitor climate change. Then, examine the overall impact of a warmer ocean on the climate.
Describe the overall manner in which climate change affects hurricanes, storms, and sea level. Then, explain the overall physical impact that this change will have on coastal communities.
Describe the major interactions between the atmosphere and the surface ocean water in the equatorial Pacific Ocean under “normal” conditions. Next, describe the changes that occur in both the atmosphere and the underlying ocean during an El Niño event. (Note: Be sure to include the changes of atmospheric convection, warm surface ocean water, and the cold deep ocean water in your description. List a specific region that is impacted negatively by an El Niño event.)
Explanation / Answer
1)
Coral reefs can show important evidence of the changes of climate. There are many different types of corals. Coral reefs are building up of millions of tiny creatures called coral polyps. These polyps differ in size and are generally quite small. It forms protective skeletons by extracting calcium carbonate from the tropical ocean waters in which they live. As the skeletons grow up, coral reefs are formed, and become as hard as rocks.
These Coral reefs naturally change over time. These are also changed by activities on land which release nutrients and sediments to the ocean, increase air pollution, and contribute to climate change. To monitor the natural and human-made changes on coral reefs, scientists in the National Park Service -Pacific Island Network Inventory and Monitoring program watch coral reefs by noting changes in coral cover, populations of fishes, species diversity, coral bleaching events, and disease events. By observing the long-term trends on changes of coral reefs, scientists determine the key features of an ecosystem changes. Because climate change is a long-term trend, monitoring is a good tool for understanding how it effects on the coral reefs.
2)
Scientific research shows that climate change can cause hurricanes and tropical storms to become more intense which lasts longer and causing more harm to coastal ecosystems and societies.
Study shows that higher ocean temperatures are the main reason, because hurricanes and tropical storms acquire their energy from warm water. As the sea surface temperatures rise, developing storms will contain high energy.
Also other factors such as rising sea levels, vanishing wetlands, and increase in coastal development intensify the damage caused by hurricanes and tropical storms. Sea level rise is likely to make future coastal storms, including hurricanes, more damaging.
3)
In normal years, there is higher atmospheric pressure in the eastern Pacific than in the western Pacific. Because wind flows from higher to lower pressure, the trade winds blow from east to west. So warm water "piles up" in the western Pacific and sea level is higher than it is in the east. Upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water occurs along the western coast of South America.
In some years, this pattern intensifies, so that sea-surface temperatures are colder than usual in the central and western Pacific. This condition is referred to as La Niña and is similar to normal patterns, except that circulation is increased and convection is enhanced over Indonesia.
But during some years normally high pressure in the eastern Pacific decreases and normally low pressure over Australia and northern Indonesia rises, and so the warm water shifts eastward, and so there is large convection and heavy rains. As warm water piles up in the east, upwelling of cold, nutrient-rich water is inhibited. This irregularity, in which atmospheric pressure and wind pattern shift across the Pacific Ocean is called the Southern Oscillation.
In the east, the Latent heat of condensation further warms the air and it also decreases atmospheric pressure in that region.
However El Niño are created in the tropical Pacific, its effects are experienced all over the world in a process called teleconnections.
General impacts: