For life on Earth, the oceans are essential. Not only do they provide us with food and resources, but they also play a big role in maintaining a stable climate: between a quarter and a third of all2 Emitted by humans, who would remain otherwise in the atmosphere to further intensify climate change, is captured and stored by the sea.
But the oceans are in trouble. Already faced with a human pressure attack – including overfishing, pollution, increase in temperatures and acidification – the seas of the world could see the burden placed on them in the next two decades. This would have enormous negative consequences for biodiversity as well as for humans around the world.
An international team, led by the National Center for the Analysis and Summary of Ecosystems (NCEAS) at the University of California in Santa Barbara, has modeled the way the pressure on the world’s oceans could change in the future. Their analysis provides that around 2050, the cumulative pressure on the oceans could increase by 2.2 to 2.6 times compared to today. The fastest increases in the impact will occur near the equator, in the poles and in the coastal areas.
“Our cumulative impact on the oceans, which is already substantial, will double by 2050 – in just 25 years,” said Ben Halpern, Marine ecologist and director of NCEAS, in a university statement. “That’s who gives to think. And it’s unexpected, not because the impacts will increase – it’s not surprising – but because they will increase so fast. “
Halpern and his team, in cooperation with Nelson Mandela University in South Africa, have integrated 17 data sets around the world to create a complete world model for the extent and intensity of the impact of human activities on the ocean. Previous studies have often dealt with the impacts of specific activities in isolation; This study incorporates these activities to highlight the future vision of the marine environment more clearly.
What emerges is an image of a new deterioration in areas already strongly impacted, such as coastal waters, as well as rapid expansion impacts through the high seas, which have been relatively stable so far. In equatorial regions, the impact of human activities could increase almost three times between the 2040s and 2050s.
The specific major impacts include the increase in sea temperatures, the drop in marine resources due to fishing, the increase in sea level, the acidification of sea water (which is a consequence of2 dissolving in the sea) and algae bloom due to the influx of nutrients flowing in the ocean, mainly farms. Although these charges are each isolated, their combined effects could exceed the resilience of ecosystems and cause irreversible losses.
Researchers warn that this cumulative impact will then reach the company – for example, by lowering food supplies, killing jobs in tourism and fishing, flooding low land and destroying the coral reefs that protect the ribs from storms and tsunamis. There will be direct impacts on human livelihoods and economies, leading to regional economic instability, Halpern said.
Developing countries and small island nations in particular have the economic means to take adaptation measures, despite their often strong dependence on marine resources. The cumulative effects will therefore appear unevenly between countries. Oceanic change is not only an environmental problem; This is a problem concerning the stability of the international community as a whole.
However, the projections of this study are only possibilities; Such a future does not have to arrive. The reduction of greenhouse gas emissions to reduce climate change and ocean acidification, systematically manage fishing resources, avoid coastal pollution and preserve coastal mangroves and salt marshes can help reduce deterioration. There is still room to minimize the impact.
This story originally appeared on Cable Japan and has been translated from the Japanese.
