Thermohaline feedback loops and Natural Capital
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.3989/scimar.2001.65s2231Keywords:
thermohaline, circulation feedback Loops, natural capital, biocomplexity, Arctic, Mediterranean, Pamlico SoundAbstract
Human interference now represents an inextricable component of all major ecosystems. Whether this is through top-down overharvesting of ecosystem production or bottom-up alteration (deliberate or inadvertent) of the abiotic conditions, the planet´s ecosphere is in a vicious degradation cycle. For our economy to shift from exploiting to sustaining the natural systems, the solution, if there is to be one, will involve incorporation of the value of natural capital into the economic and political feedback loop. For the science sector, this will involve developing methodologies to evaluate the nonlinear and behavioral dynamics of entire systems in ways that can be coupled with economic models. One essential characteristic of systems science involves the interactions between internal components and external systems. Thermohaline circulations and their feedback loops illustrate a class of such interactive pathways. Examples from the Arctic, Mediterranean, and the US East Coast along with some of their associated ecological impacts are reviewed. Understanding how thermohaline interactions provide stability to the marine biotic environment and under what conditions this stability could be destabilized is a fundamental step toward evaluating the non-linear response of marine systems to anthropogenic stress.
Downloads
Download data is not yet available.
Downloads
Published
2001-12-30
How to Cite
1.
Sawyer Hopkins T. Thermohaline feedback loops and Natural Capital. scimar [Internet]. 2001Dec.30 [cited 2023May31];65(S2):231-56. Available from: https://scientiamarina.revistas.csic.es/index.php/scientiamarina/article/view/698
Issue
Section
Articles
License
Copyright (c) 2001 Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas (CSIC)

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
© CSIC. Manuscripts published in both the printed and online versions of this Journal are the property of Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas, and quoting this source is a requirement for any partial or full reproduction.All contents of this electronic edition, except where otherwise noted, are distributed under a “Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International” (CC BY 4.0) License. You may read here the basic information and the legal text of the license. The indication of the CC BY 4.0 License must be expressly stated in this way when necessary.
Self-archiving in repositories, personal webpages or similar, of any version other than the published by the Editor, is not allowed.