Currently the oceans of the world absorb approximately thirty percent of the carbon dioxide emissions created by man. The oceans of the world also produce a large percentage of the oxygen required for life on this planet, a percentage around fifty percent. Many scientists are concerned that the current impact of global warming will cause the downfall of the world’s oceans and therefore destroy life as we know it on this planet.
An Australian-United States team of researchers recently published a study regarding the impact of climate change on the world’s oceans in the journal Science. The scientists used ten years of current marine research to conclude that the oceans are nearing a very dangerous “tipping point”.
Amongst the problems afflicting the oceans are acidification, declining kelp and coral reefs, increasing diseases and pests and increasing dead zones. The lead-author of the study, Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg from the Global Change Institute at The University of Queensland, stated: “It’s as if the Earth has been smoking two packs of cigarettes a day.”
Hoegh-Guldberg continued: “We are entering a period in which the very ocean services upon which humanity depends are undergoing massive change and in some cases beginning to fail. […] Quite plainly, the Earth cannot do without its ocean. This is further evidence that we are on the way to the next great extinction event.”
The scientists point to the fact that the world’s climate had been stable for many thousands of years and only recently began altering. In the last 150 years, the scientists believe the human population has caused massive changes that species are unable to keep up with through evolution. Hoegh-Guldberg stated: “If we continue down this pathway we get into conditions which have no analogue to anything we’ve experienced.”
