The world’s oceans are heading towards the point of collapse

lifelong Earth, oceans are necessary. Not only is it limited to providing us with food and resources, but also play a big role in maintaining a stable climate: between a quarter to a third of all posts₂ It is emitted by humans, which will remain in the air to increase the intensification of climate change, He was arrested and stored in the sea.

But the oceans are in trouble. It is already facing an attack of human pressure – including overfishing, pollution, high temperatures and acids – the world can see that the burden places double over the next two decades. This will have great negative consequences for biological diversity as well as human beings all over the world.

An international team, led by the National Center for the Ecological System Analysis and its synthesis (NCEAS) at the University of California, Santa Barbara, It has been designed How the pressure that was placed on the world’s oceans can change. Their analysis indicates that at about 2050, cumulative pressure on the oceans may increase from 2.2 to 2.6 times compared to today. The most rapid impact increases will occur near the equator, in the columns, and in coastal areas.

“Our cumulative influence on the oceans, which is already great, will double by 2050 – in only 25 years,” explained Bin Halburn, Marine Environment and NCEAS director, in A. University statement. “It is realistic. It is unexpected, not because the effects will increase – this is not surprising – but because it will increase much, very quickly.”

Halburn and his team, in cooperation with the University of Nelson Mandela in South Africa, merged 17 data sets from all over the world to create a comprehensive global model of the extent and intensity of the effects of human activities on the ocean. Previous studies have often dealt with the effects of specific activities in isolation; The current study integrates these activities to highlight more clearly on the future vision of the marine environment.

What appears is a picture of further deterioration in already affected areas, such as coastal water, as well as rapidly expanding effects across the high seas, which have been relatively stable so far. In tropical areas, the effect of human activities can increase approximately three times between 2040 and 2050s.

The main effects of seafood, decrease marine resources due to hunting, high sea levels, and sea water (a result of CO₂ It melts in the sea), and algae blooms due to the flow of nutrients that flow into the ocean, especially from farms. While these burdens are dangerous in isolation, their common effects can go beyond ecological systems and lead to irreversible losses.

Researchers warn that this cumulative influence will strike society-for example, by reducing food supplies, killing jobs in tourism and fishing, dumping low lands, and destroying coral reefs that protect the coasts from storm storms and tuni. Halburn said that there will be direct effects on human lives and economies, which leads to regional economic instability.

Developing countries and small islands in particular do not have what is economic in taking adjustment measures, although their heavy dependence often on marine resources. Thus, the cumulative effects will appear uneven in countries. Ocean change is not just an environmental issue; It is an issue related to the stability of the international community as a whole.

However, the expectations of this study are only possibilities; Such a future should not reach. Reducing greenhouse gas emissions may help reduce climate change and ocean acids, systematically manage fish fisheries, avoid coastal pollution, and maintain coastal mangroves and salt marshes to reduce deterioration. There is still room to reduce the effect.

This story was originally appeared on Wireless Japan It was translated from Japanese.