Phytoplankton & Global Warming

A recently spy example of this is the scarcity of sardines. When sardines are plentiful, they eat phytoplankton. "But when sardines are scarce, the phytoplankton survive uneaten, lone(prenominal) to sink to the bottom, decompose and produce methane and enthalpy sulfide gas that rise to the surface in elephantine clouds.

Hydrogen sulfide smells like rotten eggs, can envenom fish and strips oxygen from water as it moves to the surface, producing anoxic ? pulseless zones.'" (Dean, 2004). Methane is lethal for the world climate, since it traps 21 times as very much heat as the most common greenhouse gas, snow dioxide.

The increase in acidity is a serious issue. " modern query shows that the acid-base imbalance can cause exoskeletal components to decay, retard ontogenesis and reproduction, reduce activity and cause loss of consciousness and compensate death to deep ocean marine life because of a disruption of oxygen-transport mechanisms." (Lawrence Livermore Laboratory, 2001). Hypoxia is even more serious. It causes a series of biochemical and physiological adjustments that enable the animal to survive better downstairs hypoxic conditions. "Marine animals respond to hypoxia by first attempting to maintain oxygen delivery (e.g. increases in respiration rate, number of red declension cells, or oxygen binding capacity of hemoglobin), then by conserving energy (e.

Fuller, Jim. "Global cranky:The Consequences For Life On Earth." USIA Electronic Journal, Vol. 2, No. 2, April 1997.

"Local confederacy to ball-shaped warming - sardines?". CGF Journal.

"Phytoplankton: A little link in a big chain."

http://seawifs.gsfc.nasa.gov/SEAWIFS/LIVING_OCEAN/TEACHER3.html

If all this is not enough, the ocean's productiveness is declining due to declining populations of phytoplankton. "The plankton of the seas are a major ?

sink' for the extra deoxycytidine monophosphate dioxide emitted in the combustion of fossil fuels. Whether caused by currently wage increase global temperatures or not, the loss of natural plankton productivity in the oceans also means the loss of an important factor in removing much of the principal greenhouse gas that has caused the world's climate to warm for the past century or more." (Perlman, 2003).

Kingsley, Danny. "Phytoplankton implicated in global warming." Wednesday, 27 November 2002. http://www.abc.net.au/science/news/stories/s735612.htm

Not only are phytoplankton and our food chain at risk, the effects of global warming on phytoplankton have rendered them part of the problem. New research shows that phytoplankton actually cause global warming by capturing and take up the sun's radiation. "'Our paper shows that if we did not have phytoplankton in the ocean, we would have a cooler climate,' said Dr Robert Frouin, a research meteorologist at Scripps?The Scripps discover found that the radiation ab
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