Education: Climate Change is Ocean Change
Climate Change is a process whose effects are focused mostly on land-based ecosystems: what will a changing climate do to agriculture or to anthropogenic energy consumption? However, climate change is having far-reaching effects in the ocean, from coastal seas to deep ocean waters. These effects are still relatively unstudied, leaving scientists with plenty of questions about what a changing ocean environment will mean for Earth's ecosystems.
As the Earth's climate warms, it creates an intensification of the water cycle, which means we can expect more extreme weather. Dr. Raymond Schmitt makes connections between a warming climate and its relationship to ocean surface salinity.
Ted Taylor, an earth science teacher at Bangor High School, has his students work through a series of laboratory activities centered around ocean acidification.
Dr. Gary Lagerloef explains how understanding ocean salinity can help us to better understand human-induced global climate change.
In this clip, Dr. Raymond Schmitt talks about how varying ocean temperatures play a role in the global water cycle.
Observing changes in global ocean salinity and identifying trends involves the work of many scientists to process multiple types of data.
