The climate change danger signals

March 8, 2010 | Climate

According to Institution of Oceanography, University of California, San Diego the ocean falls ill. For more than 100 years, fisheries around the world have been mismanaged due to an inaccurate evaluation of the true state of marine ecosystems. Lack of a full historical perspective, particularly the extent of impacts from overfishing in the oceans, has led to this incomplete picture. Jeremy Jackson, a professor at Scripps Institution of Oceanography at the University of California, San Diego, contends that understanding the stark magnitude of historical overfishing is the first step in developing scientifically rigorous and bold strategies for the restoration and sustainable development of the oceans. In a symposium he organized for the 2002 American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) annual meeting in Boston, Jackson will stress the importance that recent groundbreaking research bears upon strategies for protecting sea life and restoring their richness.

The danger signals are everywhere, some related to climate change and greenhouse gases and others not:

Every eight months, 11 million gallons of oil run off the nation’s roads and driveways into waters that eventually reach the sea, the Pew Oceans Commission said in 2003. That’s the equivalent of an Exxon Valdez-size oil spill.

Since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, the oceans have absorbed 525 billion tons of carbon dioxide. They’re now absorbing about 22 million tons of carbon dioxide a day. As that happens, the oceans become more acidic, threatening the marine food chain. The acidity could eat away the shells of such animals as the petropod, a nearly microscopic snail with a calcium carbonate covering that’s eaten by krill, salmon and whales.

•More than 60 percent of the nation’s coastal rivers and bays are moderately to severely degraded by nutrient runoff from products such as fertilizer, creating algae blooms that affect the kelp beds and grasses that are nurseries for many species of fish.