The Climate Crisis on Oceans

It’s undeniable that global warming is a growing concern of this century. Its implicit effects have grown substantially affecting multiple parts of the earth. A particular vulnerable part are our oceans, which compromise 2/3’s of your planet. In this blog post I want to explore the list of ways that the ocean is primarily going to be affected by the impacts of climate change. If you want to read more about the science about how our planet is warming due to green house gases this is a great read. The rest of this blog post assumes that you have the basic background for how climate change is occurring.

1. Ocen Acidification

Ocean acidification is one of the largest issues the planet is going to face as a result of climate change.

Ocean Acidification: the ongoing decrease in the pH of the Earth's oceans, caused by the uptake of carbon dioxide (CO2) from the atmosphere.

The way this happens is the rise of CO2 in the atmosphere is being more and more absorbed by the atmosphere through natural processes. After this CO2 is absorbed, the CO2 reacts to form carbonic acid which thus decreases the pH of the ocean. The ocean is a well oiled machine and this increase in acidity is messing with a lot of the well balanced ecosystem’s that the ocean has put in place. Some ramifications such as marine species that form shells made of carbonate can’t do that anymore due to the pH, more limited carbon supplies, and greater difficulty to sustain coral life

2. Sea Level

One of the more obvious ramifications of climate change is going to be the rise of sea level. The increase in Earth’s temperature is going to cause the temperatures at the poles to rise, thus the gallons of water that are frozen in land glaciers are going to melt and these gallons of water are going to pour into the ocean. Thus, this increase in input into the ocean is going to cause the sea level to rise. This increase in sea level has major consequences especially to major costal cities. These cities will see major flooding and a lot of disruptment in human life.

Conclusion

There are many other consequences of climate change that I did not highlight in this article, but these are the two big ones that need to come to light.