ocean (Page 6)

Ocean levels could rise by as much as 5 feet in the next 100 years, drowning major coastal cities all over the world. This is much more than the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) forecasted a year ago and could mean the end of island nations and low-lying countries such as Bangladesh, where 80 to 90% of the population lives within a few feet of sea level.

In BBC News, Richard Black reports quotes climatologist Svetlana Jevrejeva as saying, “The rapid rise in the coming years is associated with the rapid melting of ice sheets.”

Art credit: freeimages.co.uk
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We throw trash in it?no wonder it’s not doing that well. Only about 4% of the world’s oceans are not damaged by human activities such as fishing and pollution. Human-caused global warming has also taken a toll on coral reefs?but it turns out that they may get some NATURAL protection from the ocean.
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We count on the ocean to act as a “carbon sink,” sucking much of the carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. Without this, global warming would be progressing much more quickly. But now scientists say that the amount of carbon dioxide being absorbed by the world’s oceans has diminished.

BBC News reports that “scientists believe global warming might get worse if the oceans soak up less of the greenhouse gas,” and quotes environmentalist Roger Harrabin as saying, “The researchers don’t know if the change is due to climate change or to natural variations. But they say it is a tremendous surprise and very worrying because there were grounds for believing that in time the ocean might become ‘saturated’ with our emissions?unable to soak up any more.”
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A study by researchers at Scripps Institution of Oceanography shows that the underwater world is becoming a noisier place, with unknown effects on marine life. They?ve discovered that there has been a tenfold increase in the underwater ocean noise off Southern California?s coast in the last 40 years. This has to be having a bad effect on marine species, especially those?like whales and dolphins?that communicate with each other underwater.
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