Global ocean report details unprecedented climate change impact

(CN) — The latest Ocean State Report, backed by the European Union, paints a grim picture of the world’s oceans and a need to manage the impact of climate change.

Rising sea temperatures are causing Arctic sea ice to melt at unprecedented rates, reaching record lows and contributing to changes in global weather patterns, a team of more than 120 scientific experts from more than 30 European institutions found. Marine species are migrating to cooler waters. Meanwhile, melting land ice is leading to an increase in sea levels by about three millimeters per year, threatening coastal cities.

Since 1979, Arctic ice levels logged per decade have on average dropped by nearly 13%, according to the report published Wednesday in the Journal of Operational Oceanography. It’s contributing to the warming of the rest of the world’s oceans by about 4%.

For example, researchers found there’s been a near 90% reduction of average sea ice thickness in the Barents Sea, located off the northern coast of Russia. Their full report was published Wednesday evening in the Journal of Operational Oceanography.

Additionally, a separate study earlier this year found that climate change may be whittling away at what scientists call the Arctic’s “last ice area” — a region located in the Wandel Sea, north of Greenland — more quickly than anticipated.

The area used to be covered year-round in thick, multi-year ice. But in the winter and spring of 2020, while there were patches of thick ice, there was also a lot of thin ice, and by late summer, satellite images showed a record low of just 50% sea ice concentration.

Meanwhile, in the North Sea, between Norway and the United Kingdom, extreme variability from cold-spells and marine heatwaves has caused changes in catches of sole fish, European lobster, sea bass, red mullet and edible crabs.

Marine species migration has prompted the introduction of non-native and invasive species to different marine ecosystems.

For example, a species of lion fish native to the Indian Ocean and Red Sea moved into the Mediterranean Sea due to increasing temperatures in the eastern Mediterranean basin.

Also in the Mediterranean Sea, there were four consecutive record flooding events after water levels in Venice rose to nearly two meters — the highest since 1966 — in November 2019, flooding over 50% of the city.

“Climate change, pollution, and overexploitation have placed unprecedented pressures on the ocean requiring the urgent need for sustainable measures for governance, adaptation, and management in order to secure the various life support roles the ocean offers for human well-being,” said Karina von Schuckmann of the Mercator Ocean International, which chaired the study.

The report, designed to guide the European Union’s policies and international legal commitments related to ocean governance, discusses tools for tracking and forecasting key ocean changes in an effort to protect marine environments and human communities by planning for and managing extreme ocean events.

Thinking of the ocean as a “fundamental factor in the Earth system and embracing the multidimensional and interconnected nature of the ocean is the bedrock for a sustainable future,” von Schuckmann added.

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