Morante, Monica C.

ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE BSN 1-3

Natural ecosystems are one of our most valuable assets, critical to maintaining the planet's
life. The advantages humans originate from marketable products such as pharmaceuticals, to
recreational possibilities such as camping, to ecosystem services such as erosion control and
water purification. In some areas, they are increasingly threatened by the effects of an
increasing human population through habitat destruction and air and water pollution, despite
the critical positions played by ecosystems. A new threat is added to these stresses— global
climate change arising from enhanced levels of greenhouse gasses in the environment.
The Earth's average temperature is increasing almost twice as high as it was 50 years
earlier. Scientists have concluded that this rapid warming trend can’t be clarified by natural
processes alone. The only route to clarify the model is to include the impact of human-emitted
greenhouse gasses.
Each year, scientists learn more about the consequences of global warming, and many
agree that environmental, economic, and health consequences are likely to occur if current
trends continue. As far as terrestrial biodiversity is concerned, the range of potential impacts
such as individualistic species responses to warmer/cooler and drier/moister conditions
resulting to migration of invasive species, changes in the intensity, frequency and seasonality of
extreme events such as fires, floods, droughts, and lastly, increasing atmospheric temperature
is causing glaciers to melt worldwide. The banks of such lakes are made of moraines that may
collapse when the lake fills up and may thus lead to sudden, violent flooding in the valley. Any
flood of this sort has disastrous consequences for the population and for the biodiversity of the
entire region.
Global shifts in temperature, precipitation patterns, ocean levels, and the frequency of
extreme weather events has impacted plant and animal populations as well as humans. The
resulting extinctions, migrations, and behavioral changes will have catastrophic effects on
entire ecosystems, fundamentally changing the world we inhabit.
These transformations are already happening. Global climate change has shifted the
latitude and altitude of many species’ ranges, changed the timing and location of seasonal and
migratory behaviors, altered the abundance of food and habitat, and transformed inter-species
interactions.
There are environmental factors causing the global warming for instance due to global
warming the plants, animals and insect that live in the forest will be affected, both by changing
habitat and in direct response to temperature increases and changes in precipitation, fire
regimes and storm events. Insects and plants are becoming extinct because of habitat loss,
overexploitation, pollution, overpopulation and the threat of global climatic changes. Insects
comprise the largest group of organisms and are involved in various vital ‘ecosystem services’
such as pollination, decomposition, herbivores and biological control as well as contributing
directly to human based economies through silk and honey production.
Morante, Monica C. ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCE BSN 1-3

Deforestation, and especially the destruction of rainforests, is a hugely significant

contributor to climate change. Scientists estimate that forest loss and other changes to the use
of land account for around 23% of current man-made CO2 emissions – which equates to 17% of
the 100-year warming impact of all current greenhouse-gas emissions.
Climate change will also influence the functioning of ecosystems — the characteristic ways
in which energy and chemicals flow through the plants, herbivores, carnivores, and soil
organisms that comprise the living components of ecosystems.
The growing season of plants is lengthening, plant and animal ranges are shifting poleward
and upward in elevation, and with the help of increased temperatures and atmospheric CO 2
concentrations, invasive alien species increasingly impact upon indigenous species. It may be
possible to increase the amount of carbon stored in ecosystems, and hence temporarily slow
the rate of accumulation of carbon in the atmosphere (which comes primarily from the burning
of fossil fuels) by planting forests on lands that currently do not support forests and by
maintaining or increasing areas of mature and old growth forest.
If trees are planted where previously there weren't any, they will on soak up CO2 as they
grow, reducing the amount of greenhouse gas in the atmosphere. It is thought that trees, plants
and other land-based "carbon sinks" currently soak up more than a quarter of all the CO2 that
humans add to the air each year – though that figure could change as the planet warms.