Sentences with phrase «rate of ecosystem change»

Climate change amplifies existing risks to our natural resources, and many species will struggle to keep up with the rate of ecosystem change without continually evolving habitat conservation.

Many species will struggle to keep up with the rate of ecosystem change without continually evolving habitat conservation.

Not exact matches

Other possible explanations for the decline, which is being caused by a low survival rate of seal pups, include a change to the food supply owing to warming waters; competition for food from large fish called jacks; or the possibility that the reserve is simply too new for its ecosystem to have settled down.

Diffenbaugh and Field review the physical conditions that are likely to shape the impacts of climate change on terrestrial ecosystems, showing that they will face rates of change unprecedented in the past 65 million years.

Michael McElroy concluded, «If we choose to take on this challenge, it appears that we can slow the rate of change substantially, giving us time to develop mechanisms so that the cost to society and the damage to ecosystems can be minimized.

Given the current dramatic rate of change in the ocean nitrogen cycle the researchers are not sure how long it will take for marine ecosystems to adapt.

«Tropical ecosystems suffered widespread devastation each time that greenhouse gases rose rapidly in the past, despite differences in the rates of change and species involved.

In applying them, they found that a more realistic representation of the marine ecosystem helped the ocean to take up and store carbon at similar rates regardless of global changes in physical properties, like temperature, salinity and circulation.

In a paper published in Science Advances, he proposes that mass extinction occurs if one of two thresholds are crossed: For changes in the carbon cycle that occur over long timescales, extinctions will follow if those changes occur at rates faster than global ecosystems can adapt.

The coastal ecosystems of mangroves, seagrass meadows and tidal marshes mitigate climate change by sequestering carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere and oceans at significantly higher rates, per unit area, than terrestrial forests (Figure 1).

An extremely fast rate of climate change puts more pressure on an ecosystem than a slower one, a short search will find that general conclusion.

[ANDY REVKIN says: I was at the first Conference on the Changing Atmosphere in Toronto in 1988, but mainly recall the worried look on the representative from the Maldives, and the statement by Michael McElroy of Harvard, quoted in my 1988 Discover Magazine article on the greenhouse effect: «If we choose to take on this challenge, it appears that we can slow the rate of change substantially, giving us time to develop mechanisms so that the cost to society and the damage to ecosystems can be minimized.

Between the poles of real - time catastrophe and nonevent lies the prevailing scientific view: Without big changes in emissions rates, global warming from the buildup of greenhouse gases is likely to lead to substantial, and largely irreversible, transformations of climate, ecosystems and coastlines later this century.

Michael McElroy concluded, «If we choose to take on this challenge, it appears that we can slow the rate of change substantially, giving us time to develop mechanisms so that the cost to society and the damage to ecosystems can be minimized.

For policy - makers, the speed of climate change over the coming decades matters as much as the total long - term change, since this rate of change will determine whether human societies and natural ecosystems will be able to adapt fast enough to survive.New results indicate a warming rate of about 2.5 C per century over the coming decades (assuming no attempt is made to reduce GHG emissions).

We also have acceptable estimates of sequestration rates by average forest ecosystems based on an extensive literature review, on Food and Agriculture Organization and Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports (approximately1 metric ton carbon per ha per year [12]-RRB-.

Climate scientists Michael Oppenheimer and Kevin Trenberth also took issue with Koonin's assertion about the impact of human activity, saying, Warming is well beyond natural climate variability and projected rates of change are potentially faster than ecosystems, farmers and societies can adapt to without major disruptions.

Dana: «Climate scientists Michael Oppenheimer and Kevin Trenberth also took issue with Koonin's assertion about the impact of human activity, saying, Warming is well beyond natural climate variability and projected rates of change are potentially faster than ecosystems, farmers and societies can adapt to without major disruptions.

From an OSU press release: CORVALLIS, Ore. — An analysis of 35 headwater basins in the United States and Canada found that the impact of warmer air temperatures on streamflow rates was less than expected in many locations, suggesting that some ecosystems may be resilient to certain aspects of climate change.

-- The impact of an excessive rate of temperature change on ecosystems and agriculture.

It is known, however, that the resilience of marine ecosystems to adjust to climate change impacts is likely to be reduced by both the range of factors and their rate of change.

However, reducing the impact of these non-climate factors may reduce the overall rate of change within ocean ecosystems.

A significant component of this key ecosystem characteristic is dependent on relatively slow processes such as rates of recuitment, mortality, and changes in vegetation composition.

The fossil record indicates that the past 100 years has seen species extinctions at 100 — 1,000 times the background rate (Millennium Ecosystem Assessment 2005), and among five drivers of global biodiversity loss between now and 2100 (climate change, land use change, atmospheric CO2 increases, nitrogen deposition, and species introductions), land use change — not climate change — is predicted to be the most important (Sala et al. 2000).

While only a few recent species extinctions have been attributed to climate change, natural global climate change at rates slower than current anthropogenic climate change caused significant ecosystem shifts and species extinctions in the past millions of years.

And the concern is that the rate of change we're seeing in temperature is much too fast for these ecosystems to adapt.»

A proportional approach to downscaling the SRES land - cover scenarios has been applied to global ecosystem modelling (Arnell et al., 2004) by assuming uniform rates of change everywhere within an SRES macro-region.

Dryland ecosystems comprise a substantial proportion of total land cover and constitute a significant component of global biogeochemical cycles1, 6, yet owing to strong limitations by water and nutrients7, 8, undisturbed drylands are typically thought to maintain relatively low annual rates of ecosystem processes — such as plant photosynthesis5 (but see refs 9, 10)-- and to harbour biological communities that change composition on relatively slow timescales11.

However, the understanding of the effects on marine ecosystems is too limited to be able to draw any conclusions about the magnitude and rate of changes to come.

It is increasingly clear that this rich ecosystem affects the melt rates of polar ice and snow and could be accelerating climate change.

At best, changes of such magnitude would trigger dramatic re-organization of ecosystems across the globe that would play out over the next few centuries; at worst, extinction rates would elevate considerably for the many species adapted to pre-global warming conditions, via mechanisms described above (inability to disperse or evolve fast enough to keep pace with the extremely rapid rate of climate change, and disruption of ecological interactions within communities as species respond individualistically).

The positive effects of climate change — such as longer growing seasons, lower natural winter mortality, and faster growth rates in higher latitudes — may be offset by negative factors such as changes in established reproductive patterns, migration routes, and ecosystem relationships.

(Top) Fossil fuel and cement CO2 emissions by category (Bottom) Fossil fuel and cement CO2 emissions, CO2 emissions from net land use change (mainly deforestation), the atmospheric CO2 growth rate, the ocean CO2 sink and the residual land sink which represents the sink of anthropogenic CO2 in natural land ecosystems.

Coastal ecosystems may show acidification or basification, depending on the balance between the invasion of coastal waters by anthropogenic CO2, watershed export of alkalinity, organic matter and CO2, and changes in the balance between primary production, respiration and calcification rates in response to changes in nutrient inputs and losses of ecosystem components.

«We congratulate the Interior Department on taking these two important steps toward protection of the Arctic Ocean from the threats of drilling in this fragile ecosystem which is experiencing the effects of climate change at a faster rate than anywhere else on earth,» Earthjustice attorney Erik Grafe said in a statement.

For the ice sheets the answer is probably no (but experts on the subject might have a better idea), but for the overturning circulation or the ecosystem changes, the answer is probably yes — i.e. a slower rate of warming could lead to a different response (allowing time for ocean mixing to mitigate the effects, or adaptation of species to the new conditions).

In the Arctic, the rate of climate change is now faster than ecosystems can adapt to naturally, and the fate of many Arctic marine ecosystems is clearly connected to that of the sea ice (Duarte, Lenton et al., 2012).

Although historical records indicate that atmospheric CO2 concentrations and sea surface temperatures have undergone significant oscillations and have exceeded present - day levels in the past [3,4], it is the unprecedented rates of change that are fuelling concerns over whether organisms will retain the capacity to mediate vital ecosystem functions and services [5,6].

* At higher projected rates of warming, areas such as the tundra and the Amazon rainforest face a high risk of «abrupt and irreversible» changes in their ecosystems.