Carbon dioxide acts as a heat-trapping blanket over the Earth, causing Earth to get hotter over time. This means that the more carbon dioxide there is in the air, the hotter the Earth will get. Although there are natural sources that emit carbon dioxide, humans emit carbon dioxide by burning fossil fuels such as oil, coal and natural gas.
This warming climate can have many impacts, some of which are still unknown. We do know that warmer climate can have an impact on ecosystems. Ecosystems are all the living things in an environment, as well as the relationships between those living things. When one life form in an ecosystem is affected, all the other life forms are also affected, because one life form may be the food source for another life form, or may be a population control for a group of life forms.
Some life forms are very sensitive to temperature, only growing, thriving, or reproducing under specific weather conditions. Other life forms are affected by temperature in different ways—when sea turtles lay their eggs, for instance, temperature determines the sex of the turtle. Warmer climate means more female sea turtles are born, which will eventually result in less opportunity to reproduce, since there won’t be enough males. Still other life forms migrate according to the weather; changing climate will change their migration patterns or drive some life forms farther and farther north, seeking cooler weather.
Another impact of climate change is that warmer weather can cause ice on land to melt, which results in more water that will eventually end up in the ocean, causing sea level to rise. Also, water expands when exposed to heat, meaning warm water takes up more space the cold water. Rising oceans can harm coastal settlements as well as ecosystems that live by the sea or at sea level.
Besides climate change, rising levels of carbon dioxide can have other effects. One is ocean acidification, which is the process of the ocean become more like an acid. Even though the ocean will not become an acid, some life forms are very sensitive to properties of the water, and can thus be harmed by ocean acidification, in turn harming all marine ecosystems.
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