Reading on Ocean Topics

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1 Ocean Acidification:
Carbon Dioxide Is Putting Shelled Animals at Risk

Shallow-water creatures, like these corals, are extremely

vulnerable to carbonic acid. Scientists are calling for
drastic measures to avert massive bleaching of the
worlds reefs

(photograph by Ove Hoegh-Guilderg/AFP/Getty

Images)

For tens of millions of years, Earth's oceans have maintained a

relatively stable acidity level. It's within this steady environment that
the rich and varied web of life in today's seas has arisen and
flourished. But research shows that this ancient balance is being
undone by a recent and rapid drop in surface pH that could have devastating global consequences.

Since the beginning of the industrial revolution in the early 1800s, fossil fuel-powered machines
have driven an unprecedented burst of human industry and advancement. The unfortunate
consequence, however, has been the emission of billions of tons of carbon dioxide (CO2) and
other greenhouse gases into Earths atmosphere.

Scientists now know that about half of this anthropogenic, or man-made, CO2 has been absorbed
over time by the oceans. This has benefited us by slowing the climate change these emissions
would have instigated if they had remained in the air. But relatively new research is finding that
the introduction of massive amounts of CO2 into the seas is altering water chemistry and ffecting
the life cycles of many marine organisms, particularly those at the lower end of the food chain.

(Adapted from http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/critical-issues-ocean-acidification)

2 Marine Invasive Species

These Invaders Came, Saw, Conqueredand Destroyed

Unknown in the Americans until three decades ago,

Lionfish-such the one photographed here near the
Wreckage of the U.S.S Schurz in North Carolina-
Have been spotted from Rhode Island to Belize

(photograph by Michael Madelung, My Shot)

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 Aquatic invasive species are plants and animals that evolved in one location and are introduced
through a variety of means into another location.

Species have always used the oceans to move about the planet. By swimming or hitching a ride
on a log, leaf, or coconut, organisms have found new worlds in which to thrive. But until recently,
this process has been moderate, limited by the currents and the winds.

Since humans first took to the seas, though, intrepid stowaways have had ever expanding vehicles
for dispersing themselves both faster and farther. The result is an increasing number of ocean
ecosystems, primarily near shorelines, that are being compromised or wiped out by non-native
species.

An invasive, or non-native, aquatic species can be any organism that exists somewhere in or near
water where it doesn't belong. When an alien species like this arrives in a new location, several
things can happen: It can find its new habitat unwelcoming and die off; it can survive with little
environmental impact; or it can take over, harming the naturally existing wildlife in a variety of
ways.

Invasive species that thrive usually do so because their new habitat lacks natural predators to
control their population. They do damage mainly by consuming native species, competing with
them for food or space, or introducing disease.

(Adapted from http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/critical-issues-marine-invasive-species)

3 Marine Habitat Destruction

Coastal Areas Are Bearing the Brunt

Pollution, logging, dredging, draining of wetlands, and

coastal development are all factors that lead to marine
habitat destruction. The absence of cypress swamps
(shown here), decimated by logging and saltwater
intrusion from manmade canals, is among the factors
that led to New Orleanss devastation during Hurricane
Katrina

(photograph by Tyrone Turner)

Habitat destruction occurs when the conditions necessary for plants and animals to survive are
significantly compromised or eliminated.

Most areas of the world's oceans are experiencing habitat loss. But coastal areas, with their
closeness to human population centers, have suffered disproportionately and mainly from
manmade stresses. Habitat loss here has far-reaching impacts on the entire ocean's biodiversity.
These critical areas, which include estuaries, swamps, marshes, and wetlands, serve as breeding
grounds or nurseries for nearly all marine species.

Humans and Mother Nature share blame in the destruction of ocean habitats, but not equally.

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Hurricanes and typhoons, storm surges, tsunamis and the like can cause massive, though usually
temporary, disruptions in the life cycles of ocean plants and animals. Human activities, however,
are significantly more impactful and persistent.

Wetlands are dredged and filled in to accommodate urban, industrial, and agricultural
development. Cities, factories, and farms create waste, pollution, and chemical effluent and runoff
that can wreak havoc on reefs, sea grasses, birds, and fish.

Inland dams decrease natural nutrient-rich runoff, cut off fish migration routes, and curb
freshwater flow, increasing the salinity of coastal waters. Deforestation far from shore creates
erosion, sending silt into shallow waters that can block the sunlight coral reefs need to thrive.

Destructive fishing techniques like bottom trawling, dynamiting, and poisoning destroy habitats
near shore as well as in the deep sea.

Tourism brings millions of boaters, snorkelers, and scuba divers into direct contact with fragile
wetland and reef ecosystems. Container ships and tankers can damage habitat with their hulls and
anchors. Spills of crude oil and other substances kill thousands of birds and fish and leave a toxic
environment that can persist for years.

(Adapted from http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/critical-issues-marine-habitat-destruction)

4 Marine Pollution
Centuries of Abuse Have Taken a Heavy Toll

Trash litters the waters of a fishing village on Bonny

Island in the Niger Delta. This impoverished region of
Africa was supposed to be transformed for the better by
the discovery in 1956 of large oil reserves. Half a
century later, poverty still reigns, exacerbated by
pollution, depleted fisheries, and environmental
degradation from the oil industry.

(photograph by Ed Kashi)

The oceans are so vast and deep that until fairly recently, it was widely assumed that no matter
how much trash and chemicals humans dumped into them, the effects would be negligible.
Proponents of dumping in the oceans even had a catchphrase: "The solution to pollution is
dilution."

Today, we need look no further than the New Jersey-size dead zone that forms each summer in
the Mississippi River Delta, or the thousand-mile-wide swath of decomposing plastic in the
northern Pacific Ocean to see that this "dilution" policy has helped place a once flourishing ocean
ecosystem on the brink of collapse.

There is evidence that the oceans have suffered at the hands of mankind for millennia, as far back
as Roman times. But recent studies show that degradation, particularly of shoreline areas, has
accelerated dramatically in the past three centuries as industrial discharge and runoff from farms
and coastal cities has increased.

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 Pollution is the introduction of harmful contaminants that are outside the norm for a given
ecosystem. Common man-made pollutants that reach the ocean include pesticides, herbicides,
chemical fertilizers, detergents, oil, sewage, plastics, and other solids. Many of these pollutants
collect at the ocean's depths, where they are consumed by small marine organisms and introduced
into the global food chain. Scientists are even discovering that pharmaceuticals ingested by
humans but not fully processed by our bodies are eventually ending up in the fish we eat.

Many ocean pollutants are released into the environment far upstream from coastlines. Nitrogen-
rich fertilizers applied by farmers inland, for example, end up in local streams, rivers, and
groundwater and are eventually deposited in estuaries, bays, and deltas. These excess nutrients
can spawn massive blooms of algae that rob the water of oxygen, leaving areas where little or no
marine life can exist. Scientists have counted some 400 such dead zones around the world.

Solid waste like bags, foam, and other items dumped into the oceans from land or by ships at sea
are frequently consumed, with often fatal effects, by marine mammals, fish, and birds that
mistake it for food. Discarded fishing nets drift for years, ensnaring fish and mammals. In certain
regions, ocean currents corral trillions of decomposing plastic items and other trash into gigantic,
swirling garbage patches. One in the North Pacific, known as the Pacific Trash Vortex, is
estimated to be the size of Texas. A new, massive patch was discovered in the Atlantic Ocean in
early 2010.

(Adapted from http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/critical-issues-marine-pollution)

5 Impact of Climate Change on Coral Reefs

Photograph by Vince Kerr

Anthropogenic climate change poses a serious threat to coral

reefs around the world. The impacts of global warming can
be isolated by studying long-lived corals growing on remote,
uninhabited islands of the central tropical Pacific, where
human impact is nonexistentthis is what NGS/Waitt grantee Dr. Kim Cobb and her team plan to
do. By analyzing the chemistry of large coral skeletons collected from reefs in this area, they can
reconstruct the monthly history of temperature and rainfall patterns for the last 50 to 100 years.

Tropical Pacific climate oscillations and trends profoundly affect temperature and rainfall patterns
around the world, impacting Atlantic hurricane activity, Indian monsoon strength, and drought in
the western U.S. An accurate history of tropical Pacific temperatures and rainfall may help to
both explain regional climate trends over the last decades and to improve regional climate
forecasts for the coming decades.

They propose to survey coral reef health, install environmental monitoring devices, and collect
long coral cores from three equatorial islandsMalden, Starbuck, and Filippo. The team chose to

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target these three islands because they are heavily impacted by the powerful climate systems that
they would like to reconstruct; their location is poorly sampled by available instrumental climate
data; and very little scientific research has been conducted there, so much can be gained from this
expedition's data. Moreover, there is some urgency to the proposed work, as climate change
continues to degrade coral reef health, such that the large, healthy coral colonies we need for our
studies may disappear in coming years.

(Adapted from http://ocean.nationalgeographic.com/ocean/explore/climate-change-coral-reefs)

Questions:

1. Which text describes the movement of oceanic species to strange place, its causes and
consequences?
A. Text 1
B. Text 2
C. Text 3
D. Text 4

2. Which text depicts the devastation of marine organism life as the impact of harmful
emission of carbon dioxide and greenhouse gases?
A. Text 3
B. Text 4
C. Text 1
D. Text 5

3. Which texts identify several human activities which result in water environment
destruction?
A. Text 1 and 2
B. Text 2 and 4
C. Text 3 and 4
D. Text 1 and 5

4. Which text shows deep concern on meteorologic conditions on state of coral reefs?
A. Text 4

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 B. Text 1
C. Text 5
D. Text 2

5. What is the main idea of Text 3, Marine Habitat Destruction?

A. Types of destroyed species in the marine habitat and why they are destroyed
B. What the people do to bring back clean and healthy environment
C. Some marine areas suffering from devastation and human activity resulting in
destruction
D. Some research on pollution and how pollutant destruct the marine
environment

6. If you intend to know what efforts some marine scientists devote to save the life of
coral reefs, which text you should probably read?
A. Text 2
B. Text 5
C. Text 3
D. Text 1

7. What type of damage the invader species probably inflict in their new habitat?
A. eating native species, spreading new chemicals and cleaning the new place
B. spreading disease, migrating, exploring their new habitat
C. eating native species, fighting for food and space with the native animals,
spreading disease
D. migrating, spreading chemical and expanding

8. What is the main idea of text 4, Marine Pollution?

A. The chemical (acid) pollution on marine areas
B. The disturbance of life cycle of coral reefs
C. The burning of oceanic habitat
D. The pollution, pollutant and their impacts on marine life

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9. Which text mentions the impact of industrial revolution on todays environment?
A. text 1
B. text 2
C. Text 5
D. Text 3

10. Below is one of some differences between text 1 and text 2..
A. Text 1 covers larger and many areas of marine ecosystem, while text 2 only
covers one area.
B. Text 1 mentions the types of destruction, while text 2 does not
C. Text 1 describes devastation of marine life because of human activity, while
text 2 mentions the possible damage of ecosystem because of other species
D. Text 2 illustrates the process of destruction, while text 1 does not