How Does Global Warming Affect Coral

Coral reefs are dying at an alarming rate thanks to many factors, mostly caused by humans. For instance, when we pollute the earth and our oceans by burning greenhouse gases, we cause climate change. This affects the coral as they can’t withstand the water raising by only a few degrees. This often causes coral bleaching, which kills these animals. Also, storms can destroy reefs, also often caused by humans affecting the environment.

How the oceans may die is crucial to understand in order for them to be preserved for the survival of the planet. Numerous human activities generate a staggering amount of grave complications for the oceans and its crucial marine life. One of the most direct human activities that causes rapid decline in marine populations is overfishing. Some of the species

Historical View of Coral Bleaching Coral bleaching events have become severe issue in the past twenty years. The increase in water temperatures due to climate change and the increased pollution by humans are some of the main causes of increased coral bleaching events. Coral bleaching is the whitening of the coral due to increased stress. The bleaching process causes the coral to have an increased susceptibility to infections and other external factors. This leads to the ultimate death of the coral and the homes of many sea creatures.

However, when the population of this specific kind of starfish increases at the Great Barrier Reef the reef “might be completely destroyed in two to three years”1. An invasion by these starfish causes devastation to the reef, as happened in 1970. Many parts of the Great Barrier Reef have been destroyed, and although the population of crown-of-thorns starfish near the reef is now negligible the reef still needs a long time to recover from this plague.2

Oceans are polluted by oil daily from oil spills, routine sea shipping, runoffs, and dumping oil straight into the ocean. An oil spill is the discharge of petroleum into habitats by vehicles, vessel or pipelines. It occurs extensively and it mostly takes place in water bodies. It happens due to human carelessness. Spilled oil can harm marine animals because its chemical components are poisonous.

Ocean Pollution DBQ Did you know that every year, eight million metric tons of plastic is dumped or somehow ends up in the ocean (Doc. 1)? The following sentences will talk about what people are doing to pollute the oceans and how they are making the pollution better. Humans are the biggest threat to animals in the ocean because they litter so much (OI). Sometimes, people litter without even knowing they're littering.

A pressing social problem prevalent in the world today is the destruction of marine habitats which leads to the loss of food for humans. I am going to discuss the many causes of the deterioration of the marine habitats such as development, chemical run off into water supplies, bottom trawling and dams. “Habitat loss in these areas have far-reaching impacts on the entire ocean 's biodiversity” says National Geographic (2014). Our population is growing at an exponential rate; according to National Geographic (2018) they predicted that by 2050 (which is only 32 years away) that the population will grow by 2 billion more people. This means our planet will need to sustain 9 billion people.

Certain species have a huge impact to an ecosystem, but even the smallest fish could have the biggest impact. Overfishing occurs when more fish are caught than the population can replace through natural reproduction (overfishing). The results not only affect the balance of life in the oceans, but could also affect the coastal areas that depend on fish for their way of life. For centuries, our seas and oceans seem to be considered a limitless food supply. But that is not the case, increasing fishing efforts over the last fifty years as well as unjustifiable fishing practices are pushing many fish stocks to the point of extinction.

There, they had already found in 1774 that elephant seal was an excellent replacement of whale oil. Harvesting them on the Falklands however, was not profitable, as there were too few. On South Georgia, however, there were plenty, so whalers started to supplement their whale catches with the occasional mass slaughter of elephant seals. Further deteriorating the situation for the seals was again James Cook, who on his third voyage learned that the Chinese had an immense demand for furs of seals and sea otters. In 1783, the general public learned this, and the price for seal fur skyrocketed to 100 dollars per fur.

Scientist’s observations in 1961 shows that the temperature of the global ocean has on average increased even at three thousand meters, as well as the observation that the ocean has been absorbing more than eighty percent of heat that is added in to the climate system which causes the sea levels to rise and creates an issue for the islands that are at sea level. The name ocean acidification is the ongoing decrease in the pH level of the earth’s oceans which causes their uptake of human activity carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. However, the oceans natural absorption of carbon dioxide helps decrease the climate effect of human activity with the carbon dioxide emissions which is believed in the decreasing pH level which makes the water acidic, then later has a negative effect on the oceans creatures which kills the coral reefs. “Coral bleaching occurs when the symbiosis between corals and their symbiotic zooxanthellae breaks down, resulting in the loss of the symbionts and a rapid whitening of the coral host (thus the term "bleaching")” (The International Coral Reef Initiative). Coral bleaching is a stress response by the coral reefs which is caused by many reasons, but the most important and frequent cases is the rising sea