A UN agency, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, has released a pretty scary report, which was written by more than 100 international experts and is based on more than 7,000 studies. It is the most extensive look to date at the effects of climate change on oceans, ice sheets, mountain snowpack and permafrost. And things look pretty bad.
Climate change is heating the oceans and altering their chemistry so dramatically that it is threatening seafood supplies, fueling cyclones and floods and posing profound risks to the hundreds of millions of people living along the coasts. The report concludes that the world’s oceans and ice sheets are under such severe stress that the fallout could prove difficult for humans to contain without steep reductions in greenhouse gas emissions. Fish populations are already declining in many regions as warming waters throw marine ecosystems into disarray.
The oceans have served us well as a buffer against global warming. They soak up roughly a quarter of the carbon dioxide emitted from power plants, factories and cars; they absorb more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped on Earth by carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. This will not continue unless we act now.
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