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Rising temperature of climate change is already noticeable in the deep layers of the Japan Sea and the shrinking ice of the Sea of Okhotsk, while rising sea levels have been occurring along Sanriku coasts and the Pacific Ocean side for the past 100 years. Southern plankton which have never been seen as northerly as Japan now threatens oysters, shellfish, and sardines, all of which are important to Japan's fishing industry. (Ichikawa, 104-105) The great change afflicted by even a few degrees rise in temperature is evident in the case of bluefin tuna. Able to spawn up to six degrees below its optimal temperature of 26 degrees Celsius, bluefin tuna, however, cannot spawn three degrees above that number. Based on the study and projection of Shingo Kimura, professor of marine environmental science at the University of Tokyo, tuna population, already hurt by overfishing, will be so exacerbated that populations will shrink to 37% its current levels by 2099. As Japan is the biggest supplies of bluefin tuna and given the internationality of the fishing industry, a decline in numbers hurt will also hurt China, South Korean, China, and the US. (Bluefin, 1) In a culture that is based on fishing, Japan faces not just the threat of environmental change but also of cultural change.
The increased carbon dioxide from combustion has in turn increased acidity Over the past two centuries, the pH of the ocean by 30%'s surface has decreased by .1, drastically altering the chemistry of the ocean. In the North Pacific waters, which is the most in general more acidic than other waters because it is colder, older, and absorbs more carbon, coral reefs are being tested at saturation points, when growth cannot overcome disintegration due to ; this trend is predicted to continue with a decline of .3-.5 by 2100 if carbon dioxide emissions continue at 1,000 parts per million (Samuel Bowring (personal communication, November 24, 2007)). The result of increased acidity is more pronounced in the Pacific because of its cold water, which can dissolve more carbon dioxide. Coral reefs are more likely desintegrate at these levels of acidity. (Brenton, 1) In the Indo-Pacific waters, which hold 75% the world's coral reefs, researchers of at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill found in surveys a decline of coral reefs which threatens tourism, coastal regions that once found safety behind the buffering reefs, and fisheries. (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, 1)
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Gagosian, Robert B. (January 27, 2003). Abrupt Climate Change: Should We Be Worried? Retrieved October 26, 2007, from http://www.whoi.edu/page.do?pid=12455&tid=282&cid=9986+
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Gille, S. T. (2002) "Warming of the Southern Ocean Since the 1950's" Science 295. 1275-1277.
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Jones, P.D., T.J. Osborn, K.R. Briffa, C.K. Folland, E.B. Horton, L.V. Alexander, D.E. Parker and N.A. Rayner, 2001: Adjusting for sampling density in grid box land and ocean surface temperature time series. J. Geophys. Res., 106, 3371-3380.
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Marine Conservation Alliance. (2007, June) International Agreement Needed to Protect Arctic Fisheries. Retrieved November 3, 2007 from http://www.marineconservationalliance.org/press/pr20070612.pdf.
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Phytoplankton imaging and monitoring data from the Flow Cytometer And Microscope (FlowCAM). (2007, November). Retrieved November 17, 2007, from NASA Goddard Space Flight Center: http://gcmd.gsfc.nasa.gov/+
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UNEP. (2006). Ecosystem and Biodiversity in Deep Sea Waters and High Seas. UNEP Regional Seas Reports and Studies No. 178 .
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (2007, August 9). Indo-Pacific Coral Reefs Disappearing More Rapidly Than Expected. ScienceDaily. Retrieved November 9, 2007, from http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/08/070808082051.htm
Western Indian Ocean. (2007, November) Web extension to Wildlife Conservation Society. Retrieved on November 6, 2007 from http://www.wcs.org/sw-home.
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Working Paper: Proposal for Marine Conservation by the Pronaturaleza Foundation: Mancora Bank, Tumbes/Piura, Peru (2004)
Zhang, Q., Yang, H., Zhong, Y., et all (2005). An idealized study of the impact of extratropical climate change on El Nino--880.
Climate Changes Mitigation: (I don't know exactly where this should go)
Riparian buffer construction and preservation will help prevent damage from the increased precipitation and runoff predicted in some areas as predicted by climate models (see LINK TO RIPARIAN BUFFERS PAGE), as the overhead leaf cover helps to slow water velocity and the ground level vegetation helps slow the water velocity. Other methods that will also help decrease an increase in run-off pollution include the use of permeable asphault to encourage water infiltration and the use of different types of groundcovers in lawns (which currently act as impermeable surfaces when solely composed of dense grass)--see http://pcgroundcovers.com/groundcovers.html for examples of different types of groundcover. Education about well placement and use to prevent salt-water intrusion into freshwater should also be considered as a priority as sea-level rises become an issue.
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