Oliver Milman - Soaring ocean temperature is 'greatest hidden challenge of our generation'
The soaring
temperature of the oceans is the “greatest hidden challenge of our generation”
that is altering the make-up of marine species, shrinking fishing areas and
starting to spread disease to humans, according to the most comprehensive
analysis yet of ocean warming.
The oceans have
already sucked up an enormous amount of heat due to escalating greenhouse gas
emissions, affecting marine species from microbes to whales, according to an
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) reportinvolving the work
of 80 scientists from a dozen countries.
The profound changes
underway in the oceans are starting to impact people, the report states. “Due
to a domino effect, key human sectors are at threat, especially fisheries,
aquaculture, coastal risk management, health and coastal tourism.”
Dan Laffoley, IUCN
marine adviser and one of the report’s lead authors, said: “What we are seeing
now is running well ahead of what we can cope with. The overall outlook is
pretty gloomy. “We perhaps haven’t
realised the gross effect we are having on the oceans, we don’t appreciate what
they do for us. We are locking ourselves into a future where a lot of the
poorer people in the world will miss out.”
The scale of warming
in the ocean, which covers around 70% of the planet, is “truly staggering”, the
report states. The upper few metres of ocean have warmed by around 0.13C a
decade since the start of the 20th century, with a 1-4C increase in global
ocean warming by the end of this century.
The ocean has absorbed more than 90% of the
extra heat created by human activity. If the same amount of heat that has been
buried in the upper 2km of the ocean had gone into the atmosphere, the surface
of the Earth would have warmed by a devastating 36C, rather than 1C, over the
past century.
At some point, the
report says, warming waters could unlock billions of tonnes of frozen methane,
a powerful greenhouse gas, from the seabed and cook the surface of the planet.
This could occur even if emissions are drastically cut, due to the lag time
between emitting greenhouse gases and their visible consequences.
Warming is already
causing fish, seabirds, sea turtles, jellyfish and other species to change
their behaviour and habitat, it says. Species are fleeing to the cooler poles,
away from the equator, at a rate that is up to five times faster than the
shifts seen by species on land. Even in the north
Atlantic, fish will move northwards by nearly 30km per decade until 2050 in
search of suitable temperatures, with shifts already documented for pilchard,
anchovy, mackerel and herring... Read more:
