Third of world’s ocean surface particularly vulnerable to threats driven by burning fossil fuel and deforestation, new research finds

Third of world’s ocean surface particularly vulnerable to threats driven by burning fossil fuel and deforestation, new research finds

The world’s oceans are facing a “triple threat” of extreme heating, a loss of oxygen and acidification, with extreme conditions becoming far more intense in recent decades and placing enormous stress upon the planet’s panoply of marine life, new research has found.

About a fifth of the world’s ocean surface is particularly vulnerable to the three threats hitting at once, spurred by human activity such as the burning of fossil fuels and deforestation, the study found. In the top 300 meters of affected ocean, these compound events now last three times longer and are six times more intense than they were in the early 1960s, the research states.

The study’s lead author warned that the world’s oceans were already being pushed into an extreme new state because of the climate crisis. “The impacts of this have already been seen and felt,” said Joel Wong, a researcher at ETH Zurich, who cited the well-known example of the heat “blob” that has caused the die-off of marine life in the Pacific Ocean. “Intense extreme events like these are likely to happen again in the future and will disrupt marine ecosystems and fisheries around the world,” he added.

  • IninewCrow@lemmy.caEnglish
    32·
    6 months ago

    The best part is that this is just run of the mill environmental imbalances for the planet. It’s faced far worse scenarios than this. Even if we caused nuclear holocaust, the planet has seen similar natural events in the past.

    Even if the ocean dies right now, it’s happened before and after a few million years it all came back.

    So in the scale of millions of years … the planet is just suffering from a flu.

    It’s us that will be destroyed and eliminated in the process.

    From the planet’s perspective, we aren’t a civilization, we’re a temporary infection.

    • thejoker954@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      6 months ago

      I wish that outcome was guaranteed, but I can easily see us poisoning the earth so much that it can never truly recover.

      Basically stuck at a point not very far along the recovery process with simpler/basic life forms.

        • thejoker954@lemmy.worldEnglish
          1·
          6 months ago

          Its been decades but wasn’t it basically a ‘dust cloud’ from the impact that ended up killing all (most) of the dinos?

          Meanwhile we are pumping all sorts of nasty things into the environment that will last 1000s of years +.

          And who knows what damage we will do tomorrow. We could easily block the atmosphere with out own ‘dust cloud’ in addition to all the poison we create and pump into the earth.

          I personally think it’s foolish to assume we can’t fuck up the earth so bad it can’t recover.