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Taipei | How Does Climate Change Affect You?

Ocean "Warning"

High-Level Project Summary

Taiwan, a crowded, prosperous high tech island, at the tip of the reef triangle. Once upon a time, the sea had plenty of coral reefs and fishes. Over the past 20 years, the global sea surface temperature has risen 0.15°C.Yet from NASA’s MODIS Terra data, the sea around Taiwan the annual sea temperature rose shockingly two to three times (0.031°C and 0.041°C) higher than the rest of the world. The consequential outcome: multiple and repetitive severe coral bleaching events had challenged the future survival of the coral reefs. Southward flow of the cold coastal current in winter stopped the southward migratory mullet. Making the prosperous and joyful sea no more!

Link to Final Project

https://youtu.be/WIfg_Z0BPTE

Link to Project "Demo"

https://youtu.be/RbAgXdBgLBI

Detailed Project Description

標題Title

Ocean “Warning”

摘要Abstract

Taiwan, a crowded, prosperous high tech island, at the tip of the reef triangle. Once upon a time, the sea had plenty of coral reefs and fishes. Over the past 20 years, the global sea surface temperature has risen 0.15°C. Yet the sea around Taiwan rose shockingly 10 times (0.95~2.49°C) higher than the global average. The consequential outcome: multiple and repetitive severe coral bleaching events had challenged the future survival of the coral reefs. Southward flow of the cold coastal current in winter stopped the southward migratory mullet. Making the prosperous and joyful sea no more! Let’s make space for coral reefs and mullets, let’s make space for ocean prosperity again.

前言Introduction

Taiwan, a crowded, prosperous high tech island in East Asia, marking the northern tip of the reef triangle. Once upon a time, the sea had plenty of coral reefs and fishes.The arrival of migratory mullet during winter was a sign of a promised prosperous new year for the fishermen. Over the past 20 years, the global sea surface temperature has risen about 0.015°C. Yet from NASA’s MODIS Terra data, the sea around Taiwan during summer rose shockingly two to three times (0.031°Cand 0.041°C) higher than the rest of the world. The consequential outcome: multiple and repetitive severe coral bleaching events had challenged the future survival of the coral reefs. This wormed ocean prevented southward flow of the cold coastal current in winter, stopping the southward migratory mullet, stopping the cash flow of the fishermen. Making the prosperous and joyful new year no more! People switched to aquaculture for a solution, and established a wild protected region for solution. Yet, without resolving the real issue: reducing the rising rate of the sea temperature, we will keep losing space for coral reefs and mullet. Let’s make space for coral reefs and mullets, let’s make space for ocean prosperity again.

研究動機Motivation

Since the industrial revolution, the rapid development of technology has brought many changes to people and created many conveniences in modern society. The constantly operating factories, the motorcycles on the road, and the cool air conditioners on hot days all show how natural resources can be transformed for people's use. But while development has been rapid, we have overlooked the consequences of using these supposedly inexhaustible natural resources. Starting in the 20th century, we began to observe natural phenomena such as ozone layer breakdowns, decreasing Arctic Ocean sea ice, rising global temperatures, and increasing carbon dioxide concentrations. These phenomena have directly or indirectly affected human social activities, and people began to realize that the so-called climate change is the most urgent issue that people need to deal with in recent years.

As mentioned in the previous section, climate change is changing the way we live, and leaders and experts from all over the world often gather to discuss how to improve the damage to the environment. But there is one part of the world that is overlooked, forgotten, or less discussed: our oceans. Covering more than 70% of Earth’s surface, our global ocean has a very high heat capacity. It has absorbed 90% of the warming that has occurred in recent decades due to increasing greenhouse gases.

Taiwan is an island nation surrounded by the sea, and the issue of the ocean is even more important to us. We depend on many marine resources for our livelihoods, whether for economic development or for food, clothing, and shelter. However, the rise in sea temperature will lead to dramatic changes in the marine environment, and the way in which such changes are affecting our lives and what the consequences will be is a question we need to address.

研究目的Purpose

Through the sea surface temperature(SST) data collected by NASA, we can observe the SST changes in the surrounding waters of Taiwan. We will compare the growth of coral reefs around Taiwan and the amount of catch in Taiwan in recent years to understand how climate change has affected Taiwan's marine resources and environment. In the following chapter, we will focus on two aspects of climate change on coral reefs and fisheries.

研究問題Problem formulation

In recent years, we can learn from social networks that coral reef ecology is gradually declining around the world, and coral bleaching is of particular concern, which has affected marine organisms that depend on coral reefs for their livelihood. In addition, the fish catch in Taiwan has also decreased significantly. Although the fish catch is also affected by overfishing, we only focus on the change of sea temperature to investigate this issue. The following two questions will be answered by our study.

(1) The impact of climate change on coral reefs

(2) The impact of climate change on Taiwan's fisheries

研究方法Methods

In order to understand how climate change is affecting Taiwan's marine resources, this study uses NASA open resources and some open resources from the Taiwan government or research to observe and organize them in order to gain a deeper understanding of the current conditions encountered in Taiwan. The following chapters will be discussed through the research process and research design.

一、研究流程Process

二、研究設計Research design

1.The impact of climate change on coral reefs

Taiwan is home to 1/3 of the world's coral species, and the coral reef ecosystem is the most productive and biologically rich ecosystem in the ocean, a tropical rainforest in the sea. It provides the basis for the daily livelihoods of coastal residents or for the development of marine tourism activities. However, according to NOAA's CRW observations, it can be seen that the waters around Taiwan have often entered the Second Ring in the summer of recent years, which means that there may be severe coral bleaching, and may lead to massive coral mortality. We use MODIS Terra to monitor the SST data from 2000 to 2000 in the surrounding waters of Taiwan, and we found that the SST trend in the north and south waters of Taiwan is 0.031°C and 0.041°C higher than the global average of 0.015°C. Through the Taiwan Biological Area Observation Network and field trips to the northeast coast of Taiwan, we can also see that coral cover is indeed decreasing and Whitening events are occurring.

2.The impact of climate change on Taiwan's fisheries

Surrounded by sea and located at the center of the first island chain in the western Pacific Ocean, Taiwan is an important economic and transportation location for international marine fisheries, economic trade and air and sea transportation routes.

The rise in sea temperature caused by climate change represents a rise in sea temperature in Taiwan's surrounding waters, which not only damages the natural ecological environment of coral reefs, but also causes many marine organisms to migrate or decrease in number. The rise in sea temperature also affects the living habits of marine organisms, and fish choose to avoid the negative effects of sea temperature by bypassing or leaving Taiwan's waters. One of the most important effects is on the important economic fish species near the Taiwan coast, the woolly mullet, which is shrinking to the north due to the effect of sea temperature on the economic fish species that used to come south to the Taiwan Strait for spawning and wintering. In Taiwan, the "Wujin", as it is called, is a must-have product for the Chinese during Chinese New Year. Over the past half century, the production of wolffish has declined significantly, causing a major impact on the wolffish industry chain in Taiwan. In addition, as the fish has become rarer, other countries have taken the fish before it passes through Taiwan, resulting in most of the fish roe sold in Taiwan now being imported from abroad.

三、分鏡表Storyboard(3mins)

四、照片our pictures

Space Agency Data

In the data analysis part, we use the MODIS Terra data as our material. The dataset's property is "monthly 9 km day", but we need the yearly pattern. Thus, we execute the data by twelve-months-average to get the yearly-average.

Hackathon Journey

From 1911 to 2020, the average annual temperature of Taiwan has risen by about 1.6 degrees in the past. It is necessary to surpass the world's average temperature increase of 1.07 degrees. The climate warming crisis and sense of urgency are accelerating. We can obviously feel that the changes in the four seasons are not obvious in our lives, and we can also see that many biology does not adapt to environmental changes ecologically, so we choose ‘how do does climate Changect you?‘ ’. Through this challenge, we deeply understand the bad changes in Taiwan. We watched the changes in the waters near Taiwan through the coral reefs and the black fish that used to be called ‘’mullet gold‘' in the past. In the process of implementing, we would like to thank all seniors and professors to continue to provide our resources, directions, and opinions, etc.