Pushing Earth's Oceans Over the Edge.

 

It's one of the most important stories of this year but it's largely been overlooked.  A report released one week ago by the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warned that our oceans have permanently entered a state of extreme heat.  Today the story made it to CBC's web site.

"What you're going to see over time is that parts of the Arctic Ocean will begin to look like Pacific and Atlantic oceans and the species, the ecosystems that thrive here, you're going to see their numbers decrease," said Hilu Tagoona, a senior Arctic adviser for Oceans North, a charitable organization that supports marine conservation together with Indigenous and coastal communities.

"And that's already being seen. Over the last 25 years, the species that typically thrive here, the numbers are going down."

Tim Boyer, an oceanographer with NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information, said it's hard to quantify just how much a much a difference it would make if our oceans released their heat energy.

But, he put it like this: "If the top 1,000 metres of the ocean were suddenly to drop in temperature by 0.1 C, and that heat was released to the atmosphere, the atmosphere would see an increase of 100 C in temperature."

This is bad enough for the developed nations but, across the Third World, fish remains the main source of protein for 70 per cent. Meanwhile, Western and Chinese fishing fleets prowl African waters pillaging what remains. If you ever wonder why there's so much piracy off the coast of Somalia, it's because there's not enough local fish left to feed their families.

The world got riled up about the hole in the Ozone Layer in 1987 and took steps to reverse it. That worked. Restoring our oceans is going to be far harder but even more critical if we're to avoid extinction.

n.b. This is not a criticism of CBC's climate reporter, Nicole Mortillaro. She appears to be doing a fine job .