GLOBAL WARMING
The Earth is warming up, and humans are at least partially to blame. The causes, effects, and complexities of global warming are important to understand so that we can fight for the health of our planet.
Sea Level Rise
Sea levels are rising due to melting ice and thermal expansion related to global warming. This trend may have consequences for life on Earth.
Sea level rise is an increase in the level of the world’s oceans due to the effects of global warming. Burning fossil fuels is one of the causes of global warming because it releases carbon dioxide and other heat-trapping gasses into the atmosphere. The oceans then absorb the majority of this heat. As water becomes warmer, it expands. This results in ocean levels rising worldwide.
Land-based ice, such as glaciers and ice sheets, is greatly affected by global warming, as well. These reserves of ice are located in places like Greenland and Antarctica. Typically, they experience melt during the warmer months of the year and the ice is replenished in colder months. With the average year-round global temperatures rising, however, ice caps and glaciers are experiencing a disproportionate amount of melting at an accelerated rate
Ocean disruption
Some of the most immediate impacts of global warming are beneath the waves. Oceans act as a carbon sink — they absorb dissolved carbon dioxide. That's not a bad thing for the atmosphere, but it isn't great for the marine ecosystem. When carbon dioxide reacts with seawater, it leads to a decline in pH, a process known as ocean acidification. Increased acidity eats away at the calcium carbonate shells and skeletons that many ocean organisms depend on for survival. These include shellfish, pteropods and corals, according to NOAA.
Corals, in particular, are the canary in a coal mine for climate change in the oceans. Marine scientists have observed alarming levels of coral bleaching, events in which coral expel the symbiotic algae that provide them with nutrients and give them their vivid colors. Bleaching occurs when coral are stressed, and stressors can include high temperatures. In 2016 and 2017, Australia's Great Barrier Reef experienced back-to-back bleaching events. Coral can survive bleaching, but repeated bleaching events make survival less and less likely.
Supreetha & Josehcka Angel - India
Reference :https://www.nationalgeographic.org/education/resource-library/
Plants and animals
The effects of global warming on the Earth's ecosystems are expected to be profound and widespread. Many species of plants and animals are already moving their range northward or to higher altitudes as a result of warming temperatures, according to a report from the National Academy of Sciences.
"They are not just moving north, they are moving from the equator toward the poles. They are quite simply following the range of comfortable temperatures, which is migrating to the poles as the global average temperature warms," Werne said. Ultimately, he said, this becomes a problem when the rate of climate change velocity (how fast a region changes put into a spatial term) is faster than the rate that many organisms can migrate. Because of this, many animals may not be able to compete in the new climate regime and may go extinct.
Additionally, migratory birds and insects are now arriving in their summer feeding and nesting grounds several days or weeks earlier than they did in the 20th century, according to the EPA.
Maryam Barami Afghanistan