What will Gobal Climate Change Do? Ecological Society of America 02.01.01 Increased greenhouse gases may or may not increase local land temperatures, depending on the degree to which local and regional climate is modified by other human actions. But a warmer atmosphere will influence other Earth properties.     Sea levels are expected to rise as global temperatures increase. This could result from melting ice caps and glaciers, as well as from expansion of the oceans as they warm. Rising sea levels could have many impacts including flooding of low-lying islands and coastal areas, beach erosion, and the intrusion of salt water into estuary and wetland ecosystems.     Because oceans play a role in climate regulation, higher ocean temperatures may lead to a number of potential impacts. Warming seas could change the type and abundance of ocean populations-California fishing vessels may catch tropical fish, zooplankton and krill populations may decline, or coral reefs may be damaged.    The consequences of all these changes on natural and human-dominated environments will be many and varied. Rarely will the effects of climate change operate alone to influence ecosystems. Instead, climate change will be in addition to current environmental stresses. The world's climate controls many natural functions, from the distribution of species to the production of forests. Changing the climate is essentially an uncontrolled global experiment.       Prepared by the Ecology Society of America   1707 H St., NW   Suite 400   Washington, DC 20006 ©2001 The Aurora Collection, Inc. All Rights Reserved. Site Development by: Interactive Multimedia. Inc.