Life - "less" Oceans

Oceans cover up 71% of the surface of the Earth - you know that, Right? But do you know that only 5% of all the oceans has been explored by till today! And to add some flavor of climate change to the facts related to the oceans, atleast one truckload of plastic waste is dumped into our oceans every minute (That's equivalent to 1,440 truckloads per day!).

Credits: Monterey Bay Aquarium research Institute + Phys.org

The vastness of our oceans made us believe that they are inexhaustible but it's not the truth now. For a fact - without our oceans, we would have seen the average temperature of our planet to be up by 36°C[1]! This is because the oceans have been absorbing all the energy since the last 50 years[2]. As a result of this, the top 75m of the oceans has seen a rise of temperature around 0.4-0.5°C in the last 40 years[3]. Check out this video by Climate Central.

Apart from absorbing all the heat, it has been absorbing about 25% of the CO2 we emit[4]. All these is the gift that oceans provide us without asking for anything in return. Just giving you some idea how invaluable these natural resources are for the survival of all the organisms on the planet. Now, let's start with the Life"less" oceans!

From the above paragraphs, you might be able to understand the importance of our oceans. But Humans activities are responsible for the warming of oceans, migration of species, and the oceans getting more acidic (due to the increase in the amounts of carbonic acid). Let's explore in detail how is the marine wildlife being disrupted with the example of coral reefs.

Degradation of coral reefs:

Coral reefs are one of the most biodiverse ecosystems on Earth. They are a home to hundreds of thousands of species. Corals are animals that allow algae to live inside them, forming a symbiotic ecosystem as algae gets a place to live and the corals get their food. Also, the corals play a major role in the marine ecosystem in the following ways[5]:

They provide homes for a quarter of all fish species. The fishes associated to the corals contribute 25% of the total fish catch in developing countries.
They protect people from floods and storms by breaking waves.
They provide income to at least 94 countries by attracting tourism, contributing significantly to many of their economies.

Due to increase in the temperatures, the algae produces molecules that damages the corals. So the corals try to get rid of the algae losing their source of food and their distinct colour - which is known as coral bleaching[6]. Since the 1870s, we have lost around half of the corals in the ocean, corals are so sensitive that if the temperatures reach 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels, it is predicted that 70 to 90% of them would be lost. And if we reach 2°C, nearly all the coral reefs would be lost[7].

All these also affects the food availability for many species along a food chain. Check out this amazing depiction from ClimateScience.org.

Apart from all this, we continue to dump our waste into the oceans along with 8 million tonnes of plastic every year[8]. Still overfishing is the biggest threat that the marine life faces and not just the marine life but also our planet as a whole - because climate change accounts for 16% of all the damage and pollution accounts for 15% while fisheries account for 29% of all the damage that is occuring to the marine life.

At the end, I would like to mention that our oceans have helped us thrive along with care, now it's our time to give back and take care in return.

This is the last blog for Why Climate Matters! Now the next set of blogs on the Climate change section would be based upon the causes of climate change in detail.

References:

Life - "less" Oceans

Degradation of coral reefs:

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