Three new studies reveal just how sick the oceans are – and how big a role humans are playing.
Start with climate change: according to a report from NASA and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, 2014 was the hottest year on record. Of the 10 warmest years since 1880, nine were in the 2000s, and the one that missed was 1998. The oceans, like the rest of the planet set a temperature record in 2014, at 60.9°F (16°C), or 1.03° above the 20th century average. Acidity, due to CO2 dissolved in the oceans, is up as well – a bad combination for sea-life.
Heat and acidity are also bad for coral reefs that have declined by 40% since the 1970s. Coral organisms reproduce just once a year, making it hard for reefs to bounce back.
The sicker the oceans get, the more of their habitable regions vanish. Loss of aquatic habitats is mirroring the earlier pattern on land, which began with the Industrial Revolution and continues today.
When temperatures rise, polar ice melts. A second study, in the journal Nature, showed that the rate of sea-level rise has been 25% faster than previously thought. Even an inch of additional sea level represents 2 quadrillion gal. of water – enough to fill 3 billion Olympic-size swimming pools – that can threaten coastlines.
Finally, a study in Science warned that worldwide, the oceans are facing ‘a major extinction event.” Coral reefs are dying, fish stocks are collapsing, seas are acidifying, and surviving species are migrating to cleaner, cooler waters wherever they can find them. Atlantic sea bass, for example, are migrating north of cooler waters – but the heat will chase them there.
Bottom-trawling nets, which scrape up anything in their path in pursuit of fish, have left their mark on 20 million sq. mi of seafloor.
Seabed mining. Fifteen year ago, there was little resource exploitation on the ocean floor. Now, 460,000 sq. mil of sea bottom is under contract to mining operations. The oceans were here for 3.8 billion years before humans arrived. It has not, alas taken us nearly as long to make a mess of them.
