Climate change and marine turtles

[Extract] Climate change is increasingly being seen as a ubiquitous issue across the globe. The current and potential impacts of climate change on society and ecology, positive, negative, or neutral, are of utmost and increasing importance. As such, climate change spans all disciplines of science and policy. From a science perspective, climate change research has made substantial progress over the past two to three decades, with compelling evidence of a warming planet and changes to ecological and social systems (Harley et al., 2006; Hoegh-Guldberg and Bruno, 2010; Walther et al., 2002a,b). The Fourth Assessment by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concluded that warming of the climate system is unequivocal (IPCC, 2007). Compelling evidence indicates that the world's oceans are warming, likely driving thermal expansion, increased stratification, changes to wind and ocean circulation, storm activity, and the hydrological cycle. Furthermore, increased sea surface temperatures will have numerous impacts on primary productivity, biogeochemistry, fisheries, and human populations dependent on marine resources (Behrenfeld et al., 2006; Cheung et al., 2009). While the volume and scope of science has been increasing, considerable uncertainty remains in the direction and magnitude of impacts. The uncertainty stems from the inherent challenge of predicting the magnitude of change for each climate process, lack of knowledge around cumulative and/or competing risks, synergetic impacts, and a lack of knowledge about species' biology, thresholds of concern, and local versus global-scale impacts.

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The biology of sea turtles

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978-1-4398-7307-6

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