Dr. Pascual (Montevideo, 1960) warns of the vulnerability of marine ecosystems to climate change and how these circumstances will affect human beings.
How is climate change affecting marine ecosystems?
Climate change does not act alone, it changes other fundamental conditions of the sea such as the amount of oxygen and acidification. These joint impacts together with rising temperatures are having an effect on all marine organisms. Not only are species being lost but also the interactions between them. A direct and very profound effect of rising temperatures is the bleaching of corals, their death. And we are talking about an organism that is the basis of the entire ecosystem.
And how can these changes affect human beings?
They affect humans because marine ecosystems provide them with many… ecosystem services. The most important is food production….
“Misuse of land is what leads to infections from wild animals spreading to humans”
Will it be reduced?
Yes, it will be reduced. Other key impacts are that the sea is involved in climate regulation, it absorbs a lot of carbon dioxide, provides us with food, materials, encourages tourism, and so on. But the functions that the sea fulfills both to produce oxygen and to absorb carbon dioxide, to regulate the climate, depend on ecosystems, on living organisms. And with these drastic changes the ecosystems no longer fulfill these fundamental functions. To give you an idea, 70% of the oxygen that we breathe is produced by marine organisms, by micro-plants. And 30% of the carbon dioxide that we put into the atmosphere is absorbed by the sea. These are very important functions to which we must add that healthy ecosystems support the food chain that sustains the different species of fish, crustaceans and so on.
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