Fires, Floods, and Droughts: Impacts of Climate Change in the U.S.

Introduction 

Climate change is a global phenomenon marked by significant changes long-term increasing temperatures across the world.¹ In the contiguous United States, “annual average temperatures have increased by 1.8°F since the beginning of the 20th century.”¹ These large-scale climate changes are considered to be the result of human release of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide (CO₂) into the atmosphere in higher levels than would have otherwise occurred naturally without anthropogenic (human-based) influence. The combustion of fossil fuels is the primary contributor of this CO₂ gas production, but there are others as well including deforestation and land-use changes and other industrial processes such as cement production.²

One major concern resulting from climate change is ocean acidification. Ocean acidification is defined by the long term reduction of the ocean pH.³ The term ocean acidification refers to the concept that due to the uptake of human-produced atmospheric CO₂, ocean pH has dropped by approximately 0.1 pH units since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution.⁴ As ocean acidification progresses, a large variety of different marine organisms and ecosystems are negatively affected. If this trend continues, the damage to these ecosystems will be catastrophic.

The following unit will discuss the fundamental chemistry of ocean acidification, the effects of ocean acidification and other climate change impacts on marine organisms, and the process of data retrieval and analysis of relevant climate change data. This unit will contain basic concepts related to acid and base chemistry, more advanced chemical and ecological concepts related to marine populations, and data analysis concepts with an emphasis on graphing data sets and trend identifications.