Brierley Andrew S, Kingsford Michael J
Pelagic Ecology Research Group, Gatty Marine Laboratory, School of Biology, University of St Andrews, Fife, KY16 8LB, Scotland, United Kingdom.
Curr Biol. 2009 Jul 28;19(14):R602-14. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2009.05.046.
Human activities are releasing gigatonnes of carbon to the Earth's atmosphere annually. Direct consequences of cumulative post-industrial emissions include increasing global temperature, perturbed regional weather patterns, rising sea levels, acidifying oceans, changed nutrient loads and altered ocean circulation. These and other physical consequences are affecting marine biological processes from genes to ecosystems, over scales from rock pools to ocean basins, impacting ecosystem services and threatening human food security. The rates of physical change are unprecedented in some cases. Biological change is likely to be commensurately quick, although the resistance and resilience of organisms and ecosystems is highly variable. Biological changes founded in physiological response manifest as species range-changes, invasions and extinctions, and ecosystem regime shifts. Given the essential roles that oceans play in planetary function and provision of human sustenance, the grand challenge is to intervene before more tipping points are passed and marine ecosystems follow less-buffered terrestrial systems further down a spiral of decline. Although ocean bioengineering may alleviate change, this is not without risk. The principal brake to climate change remains reduced CO(2) emissions that marine scientists and custodians of the marine environment can lobby for and contribute to. This review describes present-day climate change, setting it in context with historical change, considers consequences of climate change for marine biological processes now and in to the future, and discusses contributions that marine systems could play in mitigating the impacts of global climate change.
人类活动每年向地球大气中排放数十亿吨碳。工业化后累积排放的直接后果包括全球气温上升、区域天气模式紊乱、海平面上升、海洋酸化、营养负荷改变以及海洋环流变化。这些以及其他物理后果正在影响从基因到生态系统的海洋生物过程，范围从岩石池到海洋盆地，影响生态系统服务并威胁人类粮食安全。在某些情况下，物理变化的速度是前所未有的。生物变化可能同样迅速，尽管生物体和生态系统的抵抗力和恢复力差异很大。基于生理反应的生物变化表现为物种范围变化、入侵和灭绝以及生态系统状态转变。鉴于海洋在地球功能和人类生存保障中所起的重要作用，巨大的挑战是在更多临界点被突破、海洋生态系统跟随缓冲能力较弱的陆地系统进一步陷入衰退螺旋之前进行干预。尽管海洋生物工程可能会缓解变化，但这并非没有风险。减缓气候变化的主要措施仍然是减少二氧化碳排放，海洋科学家和海洋环境保护者可以为此进行游说并做出贡献。本综述描述了当今的气候变化，将其与历史变化相联系，考虑气候变化对当前及未来海洋生物过程的影响，并讨论海洋系统在减轻全球气候变化影响方面可能发挥的作用。
