Saving the oceans, a priority for the global economy and for the ecological balance of the Earth

Saving the oceans, a priority for the global economy and for the ecological balance of the Earth
© EPA-EFE/IDREES MOHAMMED   |   An Indian fisherman works on a boat as plastic and domestic waste float ashore at the Kasimedu fishing harbor, in Chennai, India, 08 June 2022.

In early March, more than 100 UN member states agreed to protect marine biodiversity. The treaty - termed as historic - provides that, by 2030, protected areas will be established  on approximately 30% of the planet’s international waters.

Nearly 10% of the marine animal species are threatened with extinction , according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature. The percentage is higher in some groups of marine animals – for example 37% in shark species or 36% in reef corals.

Despite these worrying figures, it took ten years of negotiations to reach a treaty and it is not very clear whether it will be able to be implemented in the next seven years; Greenpeace drew attention to the fact that 11 million square km of ocean needs to be put under protection every year  in order to reach the 30% target.

Protecting the seas and the oceans is vital, as the human species and even life on Earth as we know it significantly depend on them. Oceans and seas cover 70% of the Earth's surface, contribute proportionally to maintaining the global climate balance, produce oxygen and absorb carbon dioxide, provide food, extracts for medical products, etc. The economic importance of the seas and oceans is also enormous: according to the UN, the lives of about 3 billion people, almost half of the planet's population, depend on the seas and oceans . The number is much higher than that of people involved in industries like fishing and shipping that are directly related to oceans and seas.

In order to be able to take serious measures to protect the seas and the oceans, however, more studies are needed and also a better understanding of the phenomena that affect them.

Marine biodiversity, threatened by human activities: fishing, carbon emissions, pollution

The main cause of the decline of marine species is human activity, especially overfishing and pollution of the seas. The International Union for Conservation of Nature points out, however, that another cause, affecting 41% of the threatened species, is global warming and climate change.

One of their most visible effects is the intensification and densification of “heat waves” that affect the world’s seas and oceans,  which are as dangerous as atmospheric heat waves and affect both marine ecosystems and the economy based on the exploitation of aquatic resources. Just like with the atmospheric heat waves in recent years, scientists have concluded that  human induced climate change is to blame.

The oceans help regulate the planet's temperature, but it is not the only major role it plays in the planetary climate balance. The oceans also function as giant carbon dioxide silos. They retain a third of the human-produced carbon dioxide that would otherwise remain in the atmosphere, where industrial activity releases it in most cases. Most of the underwater deposits are located very deep in the ocean, where they may remain for many centuries to come. At this moment, the OSNAP system is being put to work precisely in this direction, of assessing the impact of storing human-produced carbon dioxide in ocean water.

Some of the effects of storage are known, and one of the most important is the increase in the acidity of ocean waters. The rate of acidification of the oceans (more precisely, of decreasing the weight of their alkaline component) is worrying. It is estimated that by the end of this century, ocean water will become 150% more acidic than it is today. Acidity threatens marine life. It kills oysters, deep-sea coral reefs and pteropods, tiny creatures known as “sea chips”. Livelihoods and human communities near these affected waters are also at risk.

Another major problem is water pollution by humans. And the biggest contributor to marine pollution - 80% to be exact - is plastic. In rough numbers, about 8 to 10 million metric tons of plastic end up in the ocean every year. Research shows that by 2050, plastic will outweigh the entire ocean fish population. Virtually everything plastic man has ever created still exists - and usually its abode is the ocean.

Microplastic particles end up in fish and from there often on people's plates. Many of them float on the surface and, being directed by the rotating sea currents, end up forming huge patches of debris, such as the Great Garbage Island in the Pacific, between Hawaii and California, which has an area six times larger than that of Romania. The impact on marine life is constantly monitored. The UN has recently announced that 17% of the species affected by the presence of plastic in the ocean have entered the red list of species threatened with extinction.

A consequence of pollution, found especially in coastal regions, is the decrease in oxygen in the water. Currently, more than 500 areas with low oxygen concentrations have been identified, located mainly where the arteries of pollution, the rivers, flow into the sea. These “dead zones” can cause mass fish killing and contribute to climate change. But even in this case, the problem starts on land, with chemical pollution, which is worse especially in developing Asian countries.

Despite their importance, the oceans are still not studied enough

Scientific studies of climate change focus more often on droughts, rain and snow, heat and cold waves, storms and hurricanes—atmospheric phenomena in general—than changes in ocean water levels. We are a land species. When we wake up in the morning and want to know the weather forecast, we are actually looking at the state of the atmosphere in which we breathe and live. We care too little or not at all, for example, about the state of the sea currents; this is, of course, the fish’s and whales’ problem.

Changes in seas and oceans have a huge impact on the climate, but scientific research still has a long way to go in this area.

Water circulation in the ocean is a significant case. It is this very circulation that causes the temperature difference between the poles and the tropics to be of about 30 degrees Celsius. Without this transfer, calculations show that the temperature difference could rise to 100 degrees Celsius. The ocean is the main absorber of heat that would otherwise remain in the Earth's atmosphere. The process takes place in the following sequence: waters reaching the north begin to cool, their density increases, they become heavier, they sink to the bottom of the ocean, but thus attract waters from the south, which in turn slide towards the tropics at considerable depths, of about three kilometers. In the second half of the last century, ocean researchers concluded that the center of this process called AMOC (the Atlantic meridional overturning circulation) is in the North Atlantic, where 90 percent of the planetary exchange of poly-tropical waters would take place.

Or so it was believed until recently. When a study published in the journal Nature in 2005 showed that between 1997 and 2004 the volume of water transfer in the AMOC decreased by 30 percent, concern was almost unanimous. By altering the planetary distribution of heat, slowing ocean water circulation can lead to substantial weather changes, especially in Europe. But in fact, recent research has refined the model advanced in the last century, as Georgia Institute of Technology researcher Susan Lozier showed at the AAS meeting.

Thus, new probing units were introduced in the North Atlantic, in addition to the one in the South, near the Tropic of Cancer, on which the study in Nature was based. Called OSNAP (the Overturning in the Subpolar North Atlantic Programme), the system implemented in 2014 highlighted a series of new variables. For example, on this occasion it was seen that the volume of water rotation can change significantly, and between the lower limit and the maximum it can multiply even six times. The data put the 2005 article in a new light, making it more of a case study than a generally valid one.

Even the North Atlantic location of the “engine” of the water exchange is now debatable. It does not seem to have a western positioning, as has been thought until now, but rather an eastern one. Data collected more recently also seem to suggest a major shift in the paradigm. The Atlantic monopoly over ocean currents that equalize the temperature of the continents is also questioned; it's possible, they suggest, that good parts of the process are taking place in other ocean areas of the planet. “Even if on the grand scale of climate change this review doesn't matter much, it shows once more how little people know about what's going on in the oceans”,   The Economist concluded.

Another component of research related to ocean water concerns the impact of its increasing temperature. The press has reported on the dramatic threat the Great Barrier Reef off the east coast of Australia is under, as between 2015 and 2018, it lost more than 30% of its colonies. Coral reefs are important parts of the ecological balance. They are home to a third of marine multicellular species, including many commercially important fish species. Reefs also act as natural barriers against sea waves, with cities such as Cancun, Honolulu and Miami benefiting from their protection. A study cited by The Economist and published in 2014 shows that such benefits are worth billions of dollars annually.

Less noticed, however, was a phenomenon recorded last year. Australian corals were damaged not only during the period when the warm El Niño current was active, but also during the cold one called La Niña. We thus return to the mysteries of ocean currents that still need to be deciphered. El Niño and La Niña are known to be responsible for the succession of droughts and monsoon rains in Asia, but their role appears to be much subtler in the functioning of the continental ecosystem.

High temperatures and pollution lead to another recent phenomenon that has piqued the interest of researchers. It is about the proliferation of seaweed banks. In 2015, such a bank stretched along the entire west coast of the USA. A similar proliferation was reported in 2017 in the Gulf of Mexico, where measurements showed that the affected area was more than 22,000 square kilometers. Typically, these giant floating blankets of algae occur near deltas where rivers, draining vast tracts of land and fertilizers, meet the sea. But inland rivers and lakes are also increasingly affected by the phenomenon, which is endangering nearby human populations.

Landfills, on land and at sea

We don't live in water, but we don't need to in order to realize how important it is to know the impact our civilization has on seas and oceans. A first step, that of admitting that we know too little about the planetary ocean compared to how much we depend on it, seems to have been taken.

The oceans are undergoing human-induced changes, such as rising temperatures and pollution from carbon dioxide and synthetic materials such as plastic. We are thinking of the fetid landfills near the big cities - Bucharest is no exception - and we realize that we have created such landfills in the oceans, even much bigger ones. So, it is no exaggeration to say that it is time to reconsider the role of the oceans in maintaining the ecological balance of the planet.

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