The International Programme on the State of the Ocean (IPSO) has released a new report that indicates the ocean’s “role as Earth’s ‘buffer’ is seriously compromised”:
A “deadly trio” of warming, deoxygenation and increased acidification combined, the report found, are posing an even greater threat to the oceans than they would alone.
While the carbon absorbed from the atmosphere promotes increased warming and acidification, pollution from sewage and fertilizer is creating algae blooms that decrease the oceans’ levels of oxygen. The report found that overfishing, too, threatens marine life.
The acidification, specifically, is “unprecedented in the Earth’s known history,” says the report, which found that the oceans are more acidic now than they’ve been for the past 300 million years. And carbon is being released into the ocean at a rate 10 times more quickly than the last time there was a major collapse of ocean species, 55 million years ago. As a result, the authors write, they have reason to believe that “the next mass extinction may have already begun.”
“It’s a lot to process,” sighs Lex Berko:
While we already knew some elements of this report—that oceans are acidic, that temperatures are rising, that dead zones are becoming more common—the power of IPSO’s research is that it shows to what degree acidity, warming, and deoxygenation are effecting the ocean. Its bleak conclusions mirror those from the IPCC report of last week. If this indeed represents the current condition of our oceans, then we need to recalibrate our perspectives and realize that “the future of humanity and the future of the ocean are intertwined.”
The Dish 