While the research predicts “a potentially bleak future for many marine species,” the authors say it “also measures how much our oceans and the life within them stand to benefit from both climate change mitigation and adaptation.”
Ocean waters are now warmer, more acidic and hold less oxygen. Ocean ecosystems, already stressed from overfishing and pollution, face escalating risks of further degradation. With melting sea ice, rising sea levels and growing extreme weather events, human health and well-being now face many threats, most aimed at coastal populations.
With the plummeting price of oil, the cost of the raw petrochemicals that go into plastics is lower than using recycled materials — and conservationists worry that offers little hope for a let up in the amount of plastic entering the world’s oceans.
Nearly half of the increases in ocean temperature between 1865-2015 occurred in just the past 20 years, a rate which is steadily getting quicker, a new study published Monday reveals.
Taiwanese marine biologists discover a mass of plastic bags and fishing net in the stomach of a dead whale.
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