Trends in the Ocean

Introduction: Abiotic Factors of an Ecosystem

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Abiotic factors of an ecosystem are objects that aren't living, but dramatically impact the ecosystem. Temperature, light, water, atmosphere, wind, soil, and climate are some of the many abiotic factors that affect the ecosystem. For example, temperature, light, atmosphere, and climate, are in the same category, but they do different things like heat in an area, would be temperature, and the amount of light is affected by climate and weather, because if it was cloudy it would block out sunlight.

Burning Fossil Fuel

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Burning fossil fuel is a good and bad thing at the same time. It creates a layer known as the greenhouse gas, which creates heat for us to thrive on earth, but nonetheless, it causes global warming, as the change in atmospheric temperature gets warmer, causing ice caps and more carbon dioxide to go into the ocean. This affects the marine biodiversity, and causes a chain reaction that can destroy the ecosystem and or the entire biome, if left unprioritized by the humans who use fossil fuels.

Greenhouse Gases

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Greenhouse gases are all the collected gases that rise and stay in the atmosphere, this causes it to defend against the solar rays from the sun, while bringing some in to provide heat. Even though it has benefits, it has negatives such as, all of those gases are stuck, and move nowhere, thus causing it to go into oceans, making them more acidic and causing global warming, making sea levels rise and cause the temperature, and climate to change all around the regions and countries.

Increased Carbon Dioxide

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Carbon Dioxide is a colorless gas with a density of about 60% higher than dry air, causing it to float upwards and get trapped into the atmosphere, making carbon dioxide one of the gases that contribute to greenhouse gases. Ocean acidification happens when carbon dioxide is pulled from the atmosphere into the water, this causes many factors to come into play. Such as, the kelp are helping the ecosystem by using photosynthesis, but that doesn't help too much, because animals are being affected.

pH Scale

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The pH scale is a scale that measures the acidity or alkalinity of a substance. The pH scale ranges from 0-14, 0 being most acidic (Hydrochloric acid), 14 being most basic (Drain cleaner), and 7, which is neutral, being in the middle (tap water). Even though these numbers seem small, they are in fact huge, as it doesn't follow the normal scale like the centimeter or inches, but rather logarithmic, meaning that it is multiplied by a factor of ten, so pH level of 4 to 3 is ten times more acidic.

Carbon Dioxide decreases the pH level in the Ocean

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As more carbon dioxide get into the oceans, they cause the pH level to drop. For example, the ocean pH level is around 8.2, and in just a few years, it turned to 8.1, and this may not seem like a big deal, but we're dealing with the whole ocean, not just part of it, so 71% of total earth, had a decrease pH level of 0.1. Moreover, this is terrible, as not only is the whole ocean affected, but the marine life that lives there, because it can cause a problem to the ecosystem that they live in.

How are the marine life affected by acidification

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Marine life are heavily affected by acidification, and some of the animals and plants are highly affected, while some aren't. For example, the sea urchin is highly affected because once the carbon dioxide is very high, the sea urchins' shells get smaller, and they have a limited growth, and another example would be coral with bleaching. While on the other hand, kelp isn't affected as much as they take in carbon dioxide and supply the marine life with oxygen, cleaning the ocean of carbon dioxide.

Wrapping it up: relevance to coyotes in the city

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These specific topics gone over, relate to the coyotes in the city because, just as the ecosystem can be damaged, so can other ecosystems, with different factors. For example, carbon dioxide builds up in the ocean, which is a factor for that, while a coyote in the desert has a different climate as it rains more. These different changes, although slow, are in fact making a huge difference in the biomes, animals, and ecosystems that we know today, because it might be different in the future.