Ch. 8 & 9: Climate Change and Oceans & Fisheries Flashcards
What’s the difference between weather and climate?
- Weather is the condition of the atmosphere at any time or place; it’s expressed by a combination of diff elements: temp, precipitation and humidity, winds and air pressure
-weather in any place is an additional total of all the atmospheric conditions for a short period of time - Climate is more of a generalization of the variety or patterns of daily weather conditions; includes seasonal shifts and extreme ranges and it’s more long-term than weather
What’s the difference between climate change and global warming?
Climate change - a long-term shift or change in climate in a specific location, region or entire planet
global warming - only addresses changes in avg surface temperatures (ex/ doesn’t consider if conditions are getting wetter or drier)
What is the greenhouse effect?
It’s an effect that makes the Earth’s surface warmer than it should be. When light energy from the sun is reflected unto the Earth’s surface, some GHGs in the atmosphere help absorb it so it can be converted into heat energy and warm the planet. But if there’s too much, a lot of GHGs can take the energy that’s absorbed and infrared (reflected off surface and into space) and reflect it back to the Earth’s surface
What’s the difference between direct and proxy indicators? What purposes are each type useful for?
Direct indicators - it measures exactly what you want to assess (it’s direct); there’s a clear relationship between the indicator and the concept being studied; useful when you want precise reliable data and clear, strong evidence of a condition or change
Proxy indicators - measures something related to the concept being studied but not the concept itself; it’s useful when concept is hard measure directly or you face data limitations; it provides more of a rough and reasonable estimate. It’s helpful for early warning signs and trend spotting
What is climate modelling and what are the 5 components needed for it?
Climate modelling is an approach that helps deal with the uncertainty of global climate change by assessing past and future climates in different ways
-The five components considered in order for the models to predict future climates are:
-Radiation: incoming (solar) and outgoing (absorbed, reflected) energy
-Dynamics: horizontal and vertical movement of energy around globe
- Surface processes: the effects of earth’s surface on climate
-Chemistry: chemical compositions of atmosphere and its interactions with other processes
-Time step and resolution: time (minutes or decades) and spatial (ur backyard or entire globe) scale of model
What is phenology when it comes to terrestrial species? What causes a phenological mismatch?
Phenology refers to the life cycle of terrestrial species. Due to climate change and habitat factors, the phenology of many species will likely change as well
Phenological mismatch - when previously synced life cycles of species become out of sync; due to the climate changes it could lead to decreased availability in key food sources for some species to go through their life cycles successfully
How are marine and freshwater systems going to be affected by climate change?
-Precipitation levels have increased by 16% from 1950-2010, so it’s made almost every part of Canada wetter
- and because of higher temps, there’s higher levels of evapotranspiration, which increases surface drying and moisture in the air
-Precipitation changes could result in variability in streamflow of rivers and lake levels
-changes in water temp will affect fish; warmer water would be good for warm-water fish but stressful for cold-water ones
Why is climate change so hard to communicate to the public?
Climate change is a very complex issue due to all the linkages and feedbacks in the atmosphere, so public understanding tends to be poor
-also scientists and the public don’t speak the same language, meaning, when they talk about the degrees of uncertainty, the intent tends to be misunderstood by the public, so it encourages skepticism and a “wait and see” (for more evidence) attitude instead of taking action
-the long-term impact of climate change being more on the on future than the current is delaying a lot a action and lack of concern from ppl
-Motivated inference (favors emotion over evidence): due to our reliance on fossil fuels, we’re more likely to deny the evidence
-Confirmation bias: we tend to seek out info in media that confirms our own views
How can climate change communication be improved?
-Frame the message in a way that connects to the audience (highlighting the existence of scientific consensus and foundational climate science)
-Recruit credible messengers for diverse audiences
-Try to communication Climate change in a way that inspires/empowers ppl to take action
What are the tactics climate change deniers use to highlight uncertainty?
- Delay - they advocate that governments and ppl take no action until complete knowledge is achieved (eliminate uncertainty on issue)
- Well-funded organization create what seems like credible criticism through supposed “experts”, and the media may be involved and comply without even realizing it
- the main thing to encourage confusion and uncertainty through logical fallacies like red herrings to throw off politicians and encourage delay to take action
What is tragedy of the commons?
The result of a resource depleting due to it being common shared, and ppl behaving to maximize their own interest, so they use up most of resource as they can.
(ex/ the atmosphere: commonly shared, but we all maximize our own interests regardless (exploiting fossil fuels for profit, driving cars that put emissions in air because it benefits our lifestyles); a lot of us don’t realize how much our individual behavior can make a impact
What is mitigation?
It’s human intervention to reduce the source or enhance the sinks of greenhouse gases; it requires a careful consideration of our carbon budget (the amount of carbon that can be emitted globally while limiting warming to an agreed-upon temp goal (threshold))
What are the economic policy tools used as forms of mitigation?
Carbon taxing - carbon pricing that gives implements taxes to reduce GHG pollutants (either on companies/organizations that produce the emissions or on products and services that contribute to emissions)
-the goal is to capture social and environmental costs in consumer and market decisions
Cap-and-trade systems - gov’t sets a limit on the amount of GHG emissions allowed by the industry, often reducing the limit each year to reach a certain goal
-Emitters that emit beyond the limit have to buy emission quotas from emitters that emit less than their allowed quota
Incentives - gov’t incentives to change behavior through subsides or grants for sonar panels, heat pumps, home installation upgrades, electric cars
Command and control - gov’t create laws that aim to reduce emissions by enforcing them with penalties like fines and jail time
What are some other strategies to mitigate emissions?
Carbon sequestration - encouraging land practices that produce agricultural crops, systems and forest systems, and biological sinks that can store carbon to reach GHG emission reduced targets
New tech - alternatives to fossil fuel combustions for heating buildings, running manufacturing industries, and powering vehicles, aircrafts, and ships (windmills, etc)
Geo-engineering - intent is to reduce greenhouse gases and therefore reduce global warming through systematic large-scale manipulation of the Earth’s climate
-involves carbon sequestration by direct capture (CO2 from air) or indirect (iron fertilization of oceans)
-geo-engineering is controversial cuz advocates claim it could reverse even if just for a short period of time, and the safety and appropriateness of the methods are questioned due to the side effects it could cause globally.
What is adaptation?
the process of adjustment or action to expected climate and its effects in order to moderate harm and exploit beneficial opportunities
-it can be divided into 3 categories: structural/physical, social, and institutional; can be divided further into 2 for the different approaches taken: incremental approach that builds on existing conventional programs and to improve performance and efficiency, and transformative approaches that change to fundamentally diff systems to prepare for future climate risks
Why are oceanic systems so important for life on this planet? What the major reason why it’s so hard for us as humans to sustainably use the ocean?
Oceanic systems are important because they:
-have greater biodiversity than terrestrial systems
-have medicinal products
-Ocean specie culture
-Key source of protein for humans
-Major reason why it’s so hard to sustainably use the ocean is because of our lack of understanding of many oceanic systems
What are the most productive areas in oceans? (produce the most productivity?)
The costal zones, and areas where upwellings from deep oceans return nutrients to the surface layer where photosynthesis happens
What is thermohaline circulation?
involves warm surface water in ocean basins that is cooled at higher latitudes as you get deeper into the basin bottom; water temp is closer to 0 degrees
-it helps mediate the climate through heat transfer from one basin to the next, but now climate change could change this (melting ice = more freshwater in artic that’s less dense and doesn’t sink)
What are the major ocean management challenges for fisheries?
-Rate of unsustainable yields is high due to illegal, unreported, and unregulated fisheries
- Fisheries management encourage choosing the biggest fish, but the fish being caught are substantially smaller than the ones caught in the past
-Prey switching - when catching of initial target species declines due to depletion of that species, ppl in charge of fisheries increase their efforts and fish deeper, focusing on catching the next profitable species in the food chain; it could lead to serial depletion, where one stock after the next becomes gradually depleted
-Bottom trawling - One of the most destructive means of fishing; the dragging of the heavy fish-catching nets across the sea floor causes major damages to sea floor habitats and systems
-indirectly, other animals in the food chain start depleting due to their main fish food source depleting and not being available (ex/ Steller’s sea lion decline due to pollock decline)
What are the main sources for marine toxic pollution? What does it cause/ impact?
The deposition of airborne pollutants from:
-Fossil fuel combustion
-Agricultural runoff
-inadequately-treated sewage and by-products/ waste materials from refining processes
-pollution could lead to endocrine disruption: many chemicals in pollution could mimic these processes from one’s endocrine system and may stimulate, replace, or repress the natural processes that the endocrine system (consists of glands and hormones that control bodily processes like sex, metabolism, and growth) produces
-Also could lead to oxygen depletion(caused by nutrient enrichment and leads to large dead areas in oceans)
-Also, plastic in oceans in still becoming a increasing concern, especially in the isolated areas like the Canadian Artic
What are the 2 main causes that have accelerated sea level rising?
- Thermal expansion of sea water
-Melting of ice in land-based glaciers
How can we change fishing methods?
-End subsidies (financial benefit provided by gov’t to specific businesses that aim to reduce costs and keep prices low and affordable) that support commercial fishing
- removing it would make 50% of high seas fishing ground uneconomical
What are the 3 main areas fisheries managers seek to manage fisheries according to? What are also the requirements of knowledge the fisheries management needs in order to improve?
-Ecological sustainability
-Economic goals
-Social outcomes
Fisheries management also requires the following:
-scientific understanding of the biophysical resource system
-great appreciation for traditional or local ecological knowledge
-Understand the history, culture, economy, and politics of the region
