Climate Change and Our Oceans

If you’re wondering about the impacts of rising levels of CO2 on ocean physics and chemistry, you’ll want to check out the article linked here. Damage to key marine and coastal organisms, ecosystems, and services is already detectable, and will face high risk of impacts well before 2100, even under low-emissions scenarios.  Immediate, substantial reduction of CO2 emissions is required to prevent the massive and mostly irreversible impacts.

International agreements on climate change have proved elusive thus far, but even if we get what we’re hoping for here, we tend to overlook the influence we’re having on our oceans.  As the authors note:  any new global climate agreement that does not minimize the impacts on the ocean will be inadequate.