Although the oceans help reduce climate change by storing large amounts of carbon dioxide, increasing levels of dissolved carbon are changing the chemistry of seawater and making it more acidic. Increased ocean acidity makes it more difficult for certain organisms, such as corals and shellfish, to build their skeletons and shells.
These effects, in turn, could substantially alter the biodiversity and productivity of ocean ecosystems. Changes in ocean systems generally occur over much longer time periods than in the atmosphere, where storms can form and dissipate in a single day. Interactions between the oceans and atmosphere occur slowly over many months to years, and so does the movement of water within the oceans, including the mixing of deep and shallow waters.
Thus, trends can persist for decades, centuries, or longer. For this reason, even if greenhouse gas emissions were stabilized tomorrow, it would take many more years—decades to centuries—for the oceans to adjust to changes in the atmosphere and the climate that have already occurred.
Increasing ocean temperatures affect marine species and ecosystems. Rising temperatures cause coral bleaching and the loss of breeding grounds for marine fishes and mammals. Rising ocean temperatures also affect the benefits humans derive from the ocean — threatening food security, increasing the prevalence of diseases and causing more extreme weather events and the loss of coastal protection. Establishing marine protected areas and putting in place adaptive measures, such as precautionary catch limits to prevent overfishing, can protect ocean ecosystems and shield humans from the effects of ocean warming.
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More information:. PDF format. Issues Brief: Ocean warming. Follow us. Procurement Careers Terms and conditions Legal. Its authors said would be the warmest year on record for oceans. Read more on the study. But what happens when the oceans get warmer, and what does it mean for us? Rising sea levels. Read More. When water heats up, it takes up more space. That means as oceans warm, sea levels rise. The study says this effect alone could make sea levels rise 30cm 12 inches by the end of the century.
But on top of that, warming oceans are causing polar ice sheets to melt faster, which will make sea levels rise even more. Read: 15 facts about sea level rise. The combination of melting ice and expanding water could cause sea levels to rise by up to a meter by Hundreds of millions of people could be forced to leave their homes. Rising sea levels are already causing more flooding in the US , and within the next 30 years, more than , US homes could be flooded every other week, according to research from the Union of Concerned Scientists.
Scituate, Massachusetts, is engulfed as a "bomb cyclone" hits the US east coast on March 2, Extreme weather gets more extreme. Warmer oceans make tropical storms more intense and longer lasting.
Hurricane Harvey, which brought more than 1. Hurricane Harvey aftermath, seen from Buffalo Bayou in Houston,. For coastal areas already struggling with rising seas, those storms will bring even more flooding.
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