Environmental Issues Assignment | Custom Essay Services

Why we need strong environmental protection programs for the future sustainability of coasts, oceans and their sea life

Explain why strong environmental protection programs are needed for the future sustainability of coasts, oceans and their sea life. Report on what you believe are five of the major areas of concern. These could be global or focused regionally/locally. Conclude with a strong statement. Please include at least one or two environmental success stories. 7-9 concisely written pages – no title page or abstract – double spaced with one inch margins, using Times New Roman 12 pt. font (smaller font for images, chart, graph descriptions and references) – up to three 4 X 6 inch (or =) images, charts, graphs etc. with detailed descriptions may be included. – comprehensive references/citations on additional page – PLENTY OF IN-TEXT CITATIONS Citations and references in APA format -Don’t need a deep or convoluted breakdown of the science. -I am including the assignment document, a general outline of my own nots and important areas of focus, as well as the collated notes from the Marine Biology textbook. I have listed other potential source materials at the bottom of the outline.Notebook: Marine Biology 5/6/20, 1)49 PM
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A hypothesis is not considered a scienti9c theory until all reasonable
alternatives have been ruled out and the hypothesis has passed every possible
test. A scienti9c theory is supported by overwhelming evidence and represents
the best comprehensive explanation of our observations of how the world
works. It is an established scienti9c principle that guides the search for new
knowledge by leading to new, testable hypotheses.
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The shallowest part of the continental margin is the continental shelf. Though
they make up only about 8% of the ocean’s surface area, continental shelves
are the biologically richest part of the ocean, with the most life and the best
9shing.
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The continental shelf ends at the shelf break, wh
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Water is extremely unusual in being less dense as a solid than a liquid, a
property that is very important for aquatic organisms, both freshwater and
marine.
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latent heat of melting
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latent heat of melting
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Side Notes
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The amount of heat needed to raise a substance’s temperature by a given
amount, or its heat capacity, reKects how much heat the substance can store.
Water has one of the highest heat capacities of any naturally occurring
substance. Water’s ability to absorb a lot of heat with a relatively small
increase in temperature is why it is used as a coolant, in car engines for
example. More importantly for marine organisms, water’s high heat capacity
means that most of them are not subjected to the rapid and sometimes drastic
temperature changes that occur on land
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latent heat of evaporation
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Salt Composition Seawater contains at least a little of almost everything, but
most of the solutes, or dissolved materials, are made up of a surprisingly small
group of ions. In fact, only six ions compose over 99%
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9% of the material dissolved in seawater
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Salinity is the total amount of dissolved salt in seawater
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Temperature in the open ocean varies between about −2 and +30 °C (28 and 86
°F). Temperatures below 0 °C (32 °F) are possible because salt water freezes
at a colder temperature than pure water. This is one reason that the ocean is
less prone to freezing than lakes and rivers.
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Transparency One of the most biologically important properties of seawater is
that it is relatively transparent, so sunlight can penetrate into the ocean. This is
vital because photosynthetic organisms need light to grow. If seawater weren’t
transparent, there could be little photosynthesis in the sea, and only right at the
surface.
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The Coriolis Effect Because Earth is round and rotating, anything that moves
over its surface tends to turn a little rather than moving in
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a straight line
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In the Northern Hemisphere the Coriolis effect always deKects things to the
right. In the Southern Hemisphere, things are deKected to the left.
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The winds in our atmosphere are driven by heat energy from the sun. The
Equator is warmer than the poles because most of the sun’s energy is
absorbed near the Equator. As solar energy heats the Equator, the air there
becomes less dense and rises. Air from higher latitudes Kows in to replace the
rising equatorial air, creating wind (Fig. 3.17). The winds do not move straight
toward the Equator but are bent by the Coriolis effect. These winds, called the
trade winds, approach the Equator at an angle of about 45°. Over the ocean,
where they are not affected by land, the trade winds are the steadiest winds on
Earth.
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The effect of the wind decreases with depth, so that progressively deeper
layers move more and more slowly. Eventually, at a depth of a few hundred
meters at most, the wind is not felt at all. The upper part of the water column
that is affected by the wind is called the Ekman layer. Though each microlayer
moves in a different direction, taken as a whole the Ekman layer moves at 90°
from the wind direction. This process is called Ekman transport.
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The Great Ocean Conveyor After water masses leave the surface they sink to a
depth determined by their density. Water of intermediate density descends only
part way, to a depth where it is denser
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than the water above but less dense than the water below. To sink all the way
to the bottom of the ocean, surface water must become very dense—that is,
cold and relatively salty.
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the great ocean conveyor, mixes the oceans on a timescale of about 1,000
years. The great ocean conveyor is also critical in regulating Earth’s climate,
because the warm surface currents transport vast amounts of heat.
Fluctuations in the conveyor have produced rapid climate changes in the past,
even the onset and end of ice ages. This is concerning because global climate
change may be disrupting the Great Ocean Conveyor, with uncertain but
potentially huge consequences.
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The wind not only drives surface currents but also causes waves. The highest
part of a wave is called the crest and the lowest part the trough (Fig. 3.26). The
size of an ocean wave is usually expressed as the wave height, which is the
vertical distance between the trough and the crest. Wave crests or troughs can
be close together or far apart. The distance between them is called the
wavelength. The time a wave takes to go by a given point is called the period of
the wave.
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The sea surface has been rising and falling in the rhythmic pattern known as
the tides since the ocean formed. The tides are a dominant inKuence on
nearshore sea life.
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The tides are caused by the gravitational pull of the moon and sun and by the
rotations of the Earth, moon, and sun.
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A full tidal cycle therefore takes 24 h and 50 min.
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semidiurnal
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tides as expected, which means there are two high tides and two low tides a
day
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marine microorganisms, which are easily the most abundant forms of marine
life
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Microorganisms are the most important primary producers in many marine
environments, and directly or indirectly they feed most marine animals.
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Some microorganisms make essential nutrients available to primary
producers, either for the 9rst time or by recycling them. Others swim about in
the water to ingest food very much as animals do and play critical roles in
marine food webs.
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Viruses, remarkably, span the non-living and the living. Unlike living organisms,
a virus is a particle not made up of a cell. Viruses consist of only a short chain
of genetic material (nucleic acid) containing relatively few genes and protected
by an outer protein coat, or capsid. They are parasites that reproduce and
develop only when infecting a living cell.
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Retroviruses store their genetic information in the form of single-stranded RNA,
in contrast to the double-stranded DNA of most viruses and all forms of life.
Retroviruses are responsible for deadly human diseases, such as AIDS and
some types of leukemia
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Some viruses reproduce by attaching into a living cell and injecting their
nucleic acid into the cell. The viral nucleic acid then commands the cell to
produce, or replicate, copies of the virus, which are ultimately released as the
infected cell bursts
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The new generation of viruses then infects other cells or is released from the
organism to infect new hosts.
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The abundance of viruses in the water is directly related to the abundance of
microbial life, particularly bacteria, which they infect and destroy in order to
reproduce. Viruses also infect other marine microbes that form part of the
phytoplankton, the very important primary producers that are part of the
drifting plankton
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Some viruses infecting phytoplankton “hijack” the process of photosynthesis
and shift some of the captured solar energy to their own reproduction.
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Prokaryotes are the smallest and structurally simplest true living organisms
and the oldest forms of life on Earth.
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prokaryotes are made up of cells. Prokaryotic cells are enclosed by a
protective cell wall. The cell, or plasma, membrane lies immediately inside the
cell wall
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Bacteria can grow to extremely high numbers in favorable environments such
as detritus, particles of dead organic matter. Decay bacteria break down waste
products and dead organic matter and release nutrients into the environment.
They are vital to life on Earth because they ensure the recycling of essential
nutrients, as in the recycling of dissolved organic matter in oceanic food webs
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Cyanobacteria, once known as blue-green algae, are a group of photosynthetic
bacteria
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Other bacterial autotrophs, called chemosynthetic, or chemoautotrophic, derive
energy not from light but from chemical compounds, including hydrogen
sul9de (H2S) and other sulfur, nitrogen, and iron compounds
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Fungi are the most important decomposers of dropped mangrove leaves and
thus contribute to the recycling of nutrients in mangrove forests
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Marine fungi are also important in the breakdown of detritus and other organic
matter that accumulates as the result of plankton blooms and pollution.
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Some marine fungi are parasites of seagrasses or borers in mollusc shells.
Others are parasites that cause diseases of economically important seaweeds,
sponges, molluscs, lobsters, and 9shes, as well as corals and marine
mammals
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The range of variation observed among seaweeds is spectacular. Those we
see on rocky shores at low tide are usually small and sturdy as an adaptation
to withstand waves. Some small, delicate ones live on other seaweeds. Kelps
found offshore in cold waters are true giants that form dense underwater
forests
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Seaweeds are autotrophs that play an important role in many coastal
environments. They transform solar energy into chemical energy in the form of
organic matter and make it available to a long list of hungry creatures, which
can include humans.
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seaweeds also take carbon dioxide from their environment and release oxygen
to be used by organisms both in the ocean and on land. It has been estimated
that seaweeds, together with the unicellular algae in the water, produce 90% of
all the oxygen in the atmosphere.
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Most seaweeds cannot anchor in soft sediments and are therefore restricted
to hard bottoms
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There are three types of seaweeds: green, brown, and red algae.
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