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      Endocrine-Disrupting Chemicals and Climate Change: A Worst-Case Combination for Arctic Marine Mammals and Seabirds?

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          Abstract

          The effects of global change on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning encompass multiple complex dynamic processes. Climate change and exposure to endocrine-disrupting chemicals (EDCs) are currently regarded as two of the most serious anthropogenic threats to biodiversity and ecosystems. We should, therefore, be especially concerned about the possible effects of EDCs on the ability of Arctic marine mammals and seabirds to adapt to environmental alterations caused by climate change. Relationships between various organochlorine compounds, necessary such as polychlorinated biphenyls, dichlorophenyldichloroethylene, hexachlorobenzene, and oxychlordane, and hormones in Arctic mammals and seabirds imply that these chemicals pose a threat to endocrine systems of these animals. The most pronounced relationships have been reported with the thyroid hormone system, but effects are also seen in sex steroid hormones and cortisol. Even though behavioral and morphological effects of persistent organic pollutants are consistent with endocrine disruption, no direct evidence exists for such relationships. Because different endocrine systems are important for enabling animals to respond adequately to environmental stress, EDCs may interfere with adaptations to increased stress situations. Such interacting effects are likely related to adaptive responses regulated by the thyroid, sex steroid, and glucocorticosteroid systems.

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          Ecological effects of climate fluctuations.

          Climate influences a variety of ecological processes. These effects operate through local weather parameters such as temperature, wind, rain, snow, and ocean currents, as well as interactions among these. In the temperate zone, local variations in weather are often coupled over large geographic areas through the transient behavior of atmospheric planetary-scale waves. These variations drive temporally and spatially averaged exchanges of heat, momentum, and water vapor that ultimately determine growth, recruitment, and migration patterns. Recently, there have been several studies of the impact of large-scale climatic forcing on ecological systems. We review how two of the best-known climate phenomena-the North Atlantic Oscillation and the El Niño-Southern Oscillation-affect ecological patterns and processes in both marine and terrestrial systems.
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            Causes of climate change over the past 1000 years

            Crowley (2000)
            Recent reconstructions of Northern Hemisphere temperatures and climate forcing over the past 1000 years allow the warming of the 20th century to be placed within a historical context and various mechanisms of climate change to be tested. Comparisons of observations with simulations from an energy balance climate model indicate that as much as 41 to 64% of preanthropogenic (pre-1850) decadal-scale temperature variations was due to changes in solar irradiance and volcanism. Removal of the forced response from reconstructed temperature time series yields residuals that show similar variability to those of control runs of coupled models, thereby lending support to the models' value as estimates of low-frequency variability in the climate system. Removal of all forcing except greenhouse gases from the approximately 1000-year time series results in a residual with a very large late-20th-century warming that closely agrees with the response predicted from greenhouse gas forcing. The combination of a unique level of temperature increase in the late 20th century and improved constraints on the role of natural variability provides further evidence that the greenhouse effect has already established itself above the level of natural variability in the climate system. A 21st-century global warming projection far exceeds the natural variability of the past 1000 years and is greater than the best estimate of global temperature change for the last interglacial.
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              Arctic Environmental Change of the Last Four Centuries

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                Author and article information

                Journal
                Environ Health Perspect
                Environmental Health Perspectives
                National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences
                0091-6765
                April 2006
                21 October 2005
                : 114
                : S-1
                : 76-80
                Affiliations
                Department of Biology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway
                Author notes
                Address correspondence to B.M. Jenssen, Department of Biology, Norwegian University of Science and Technology, NO-7491 Trondheim, Norway. Telephone: 47 7359 6267. Fax: 47 7359 1309. E-mail: bjorn.munro.jenssen@ 123456bio.ntnu.no

                The author declares he has no competing financial interests.

                Article
                ehp0114s1-000076
                10.1289/ehp.8057
                1874189
                16818250
                6d05c8ed-63d9-48ba-bce7-b46f8eed8430
                This is an Open Access article: verbatim copying and redistribution of this article are permitted in all media for any purpose, provided this notice is preserved along with the article's original DOI
                History
                : 31 January 2005
                : 13 June 2005
                Categories
                Monograph

                Public health
                pbdes,seal,pops,glaucous gull,haliocherus,polar bears,ursus maritimus,larus hyperboreus,pcb
                Public health
                pbdes, seal, pops, glaucous gull, haliocherus, polar bears, ursus maritimus, larus hyperboreus, pcb

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