Climate Change Essay

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Ever since the Industrial Revolution, humans have been dramatically increasing the atmospheric concentrations of CO2 and other greenhouse gases (3). Increases in greenhouse gas concentrations are thought to be the main driver behind climate change, which subsequently has a broad range of ecological impacts. Impacts differ from large to small scale, but include effects on biodiversity and phenology (1). Changes in global temperature, atmospheric gases, precipitation, wind patterns, and storm severity are thought to be the driving forces behind the ecological impacts. Carbon dynamics and anthropogenic influences are important in understanding and predicting current and future ecological responses to climate change. Although the number of ecologic impacts globally is an enormous amount, this article focuses on climate change on tropical freshwater fish, land use, and disease.

Climate Change on Tropical Freshwater Fish

As the climate continues to experience increased concentrations of greenhouse gases resulting in higher temperatures, many ecosystems are impacted globally. The raising temperature is predicted to increase precipitation along the equator the most, while temperature spikes will be the greatest at the northern and southern tips of the world. Two critical variables linking freshwater fish to climate are annual water temperature and annual rate of discharge.
An increase in precipitation will have a broad range of effects, many of which will directly impact tropical freshwater fish. Changes in precipitation are expected have substantial effects on tropical freshwater fish. The amount of rain each season dictates the amount of available nutrients, dry seasons being resource deficient and rainy seasons resource rich. T...

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...athogen development among other reasons(5).
Global climate change has the ability to effect the transmission of many diseases. With increasing sea levels and temperature, waterborne diseases are likely to increase, largely because diseases thrive in warmer water temperatures (6). Indirect effects include scenarios where large amounts of people are gathered together in concentrated areas, like a refugee camp for victims of a natural disaster, allowing for easy pathogen transmission from one to host to the next (6). An increase in atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations can also pose the threat of increased lung disease and other airborne related ailments (6).
The conditions climate change is expected to bring will be favorable to diseases and new methods of resistance towards these diseases will need to be discovered in hopes of preventing wide spread epidemics.
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