Impact of climate change

The music video I analyzed for the last assignment is Earth Song by Michael Jackson. From the title, most people will have an idea of what this song and the music videos are about. I gather serval potential topics among environmental issues mentioned in the video; deforestation, climate change, pollution, and war.
Among these topics, I chose climate change as my topic of research. This is a trending topic that has been discussed over the years. Climate change is also a controversial topic that has rumors and supporters. I think it will make the research process easier for me.

What are the effects of climate change?
-what are the long-term effects?
-what are the short-term effects?
-Which of the effect impact us the most?
Key words: Plant, Ocean, Animals, Cites.

Crable, Margaret. Climate Change Could Make Toxic Algal Blooms in Our Oceans More Deadly. 17 July 2020, phys.org/news/2020-07-climate-toxic-algal-blooms-oceans.html.
This news article discovered that increase in temperatures and CO2 levels will disturb ocean’s ecosystem by rising the toxicity of harmful algal. Microscopic algae are at the bottle of the marine food chain. It is the primary food source for many smaller marine creatures. However, the article explain that some algae called phytoplankton produce toxins.
Algae provide base energy to the overall food chain in the ocean. When smaller creature consumes toxic algae, they became toxic for other larger organisms that rely on them for food. Some marine animals like sea lions, elephant seal and harbor seals suffer from brain damage result of toxic algal blooms.

I know that there are many factors that contribute to global warming. Many of these factors also lead to many small changes in our surrounding environment. Sometimes it is difficult for us to notice these small changes because they do not directly affect us. I think the news here is quite interesting. The author pointed out another change caused by global warming. These small changes may seem inconspicuous, but when they continue to deteriorate, we will be impacted. The subject of my research is the effects of global warming and the ocean is just a small part of it. However, I am thinking about focusing on the effects on the ocean and how it impacts the marine animals and people live in coastal cities. I believe this article gives us an example of how the smaller change to the basis of a food chain in an ecosystem can impact the rest.

“As our planet continues to warm, harmful blooms of microscopic algae may become even more toxic, indicates a new report from the USC Sea Grant program, headquartered at USC Dornsife College of Letters, Arts and Sciences.”
“Smaller marine life, such as plankton and smaller fish, absorb the toxins, which are then spread up the food web to larger fish and marine animals that feed on them.”
“Findings from studies funded by USC Sea Grant indicate that warmer, more acidic ocean waters (due to higher carbon dioxide levels) may increase both the frequency and toxicity of these events.”
“There are ways to treat water and kill algae, like in a reservoir, but these blooms cover hundreds of square miles of open ocean. Who knows what kind of unintended consequences could occur,”

Fuchs, Roland, et al. “Climate Change and Asia’s Coastal Urban Cities: Can They Meet the Challenge?” Environment and Urbanization Asia, vol. 2, no. 1, 2011, pp. 13–28.

This scholarly article explains how climate change impose risking of flooding to the Asia’s coastal cities. The article also offers solutions to reduce and respond to these risks. Author mentions that Global warming appears to be worsen and the temperature may increase twice as much from the earlier IPPC (International Plant Protection Convention) projections.
In Asia, a lot of mega city are located at the coastal region. Cites like Shanghai, Tokyo, Hongkong and Bangkok. These cities are the essential part of the Asian trade and economy. As the global warming continue to worsen it is important to recognized and develop effective responses to potential flood.

As a Chinese American., I was born in Fuzhou, a coastal city in southeast China. I still remember every summer I saw the news of flood and typhoon striking cities like Fuzhou. Whenever there is a heavy rain season cities like mine will be flow it. Although there are a lot of factors resulting these issue but no doubt, climate change is one of them. Even this year I read news about cities in Guangzhou and Shanghai flow with water. Since I want to talk about ocean as a whole effected by the climate change I want to find a article that explains the changed in sea level and how it will impact the coastal cities. I found serval scholarly articles talks about climate change impact on coastal cities like regions like Africa and Asia. I decided to go with this one which is about Asia countries. I believe my experience of living in a coastal cities in China will help me better understand this article and expand further in my final writing.

“The sea level is now expected to rise by one meter or more by 2100; two or three times the earlier projections.”
“At the same time, Asia’s urban population is increasing at the rate of 140,000 per day, with much of this growth occurring in low-lying coastal regions and on deltas characterized by land subsidence that is further contributing to flooding risks.”
“Substantial knowledge uncertainties will result from the limitations in our understanding both of the physical and socioeconomic processes represented in climate change and the modelling of impacts.”
“For example, around the Bay of Bengal alone there have been an estimated 1.3 million cyclone related deaths over the past 200 years (Small and Robert, 2003). More than 10 million people each year, most of them in Asia, experience some flooding due to storm surges (Mimura).”