The influence of climate change on coastal areas is indisputable. Natural or anthropogenic elements of the coastal zone often reveal unforeseen changes, not comparable with earlier observations. However, human activity is influenced by climatic events that affect settlements and local economies. This paper presents the increasing threat of climate change to world coastal safety with an emphasis on field research from the coast of the southern Baltic Sea. The main climatic factors that influence the land and shallow seas of the coastal zone are: wind, waves, storm surges, ice jams and flooding.We are forgetting about the relationship between these factors and parts of the affected environment.Acostly shore protection scheme in one area forces erosion in another. It is proposed not to analyse the environmental events on average; such scientific results do not provide the basis for calculating real land erosion. In this paper, it is argued that nature does not respect average values; we need to prepare for greater change due to the escalation of those factors affecting the coast.
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It has been observed that leaf morphology shift within species is linked to climate change, but there are few studies on the effects of altitude change on leaf morphology of species. We hypothesized that similar to climate change, a morphological shift within species would occur over time under different growing altitudes. In this study, we evaluated three dominant grass species: Elymus nutans Griseb., Kobresia capillifolia Clarke., Carex moorcroftii Boott., taking advantage of the altitudinal variations (3000-4000 a.s.l.) on the Qinghai-Tibetan Plateau. Our study showed that almost all leaf traits of these three species had significant differences (P <0.05) across an altitudinal gradient. Different species responded differently to altitude change. Leaf thickness (LT) of the three species increased with increase in altitude. Leaf area (LA) of E. nutans and C. moorcroftii decreased with increasing altitude, but that of K. capillifolia increased. There was no obvious linear effect on leaf dry matter content (LDMC) and specific leaf area (SLA) of these three species. LDMC of E. nutans and C. moorcroftii showed a trend of increase, while that of K. capillifolia decreased. SLA of E. nutans and K. capillifolia showed a trend of increase, but that of C. moorcroftii decreased with increase in altitude. In addition, soil pH (pH) and air temperature (AT) decreased with increase in altitude. However, other soil and climate factors increased as altitude increased. The finding of this work is that leaf morphology shift within species happens under altitude change to adapt to specific environment.
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