The oceans are gradually getting asphyxiated. That’s what a new study that studied the rising levels of CO2 in our oceans claims. As the level of the greenhouse gases increase, it is also choking the breath of living organisms which makes up the marine ecosystem. In brief, the oceans are running out of air.
Lead-author Australian marine scientist Professor Ove Hoegh-Guldberg draws a human parallel.
“It’s as if the Earth has been smoking two packs of cigarettes a day.”
The study came after a decade of marine ecosystem research and it nailed the reason to climate change that’s causing major declines in marine ecosystems. The joint U.S-Australian report was published in the Science journal this Friday.
The oceans are not only where life if believed to have originated from, but it is also responsible for sustaining it today. We do not realize it, but they are indeed the ‘heart and lungs’ of our planet. They generate half of the Earth’s oxygen and absorb nearly 30 percent of carbon dioxide.
The study found that the marine ecosystem is gradually degrading. Kelp forests and coral reefs were getting depleted. The population of smaller fish, an essential part of the marine food chain, was declining. Incidence of pests and diseases are on the rise. Add to that the warming of the oceans and its acidification. Water circulation changes were also noted.
Hoegh-Guldberg, director of the Global Change Institute at The University of Queensland says,
“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.”
The report again highlighted some well known facts. The Earth’s climate is changing and this scale of change is unprecedented in the last 150 years. Pollution is accelerating what normally takes thousands of years.
Another co-author warned that the tipping point could be very near.
“We are becoming increasingly certain that the world’s marine ecosystems are approaching tipping points. These tipping points are where change accelerates and causes unrelated impacts on other systems.”
It’s a race against time to recover some part of what we have lost and continue to lose. 3.5 billion people depend on these very oceans for their daily livelihood.
Image: Wikimedia Commons
