Oceans feel the heat from human climate pollution
Oceans have absorbed the vast majority of the warming caused by burning fossil fuels and shielded societies from the full impact of greenhouse gas emissions.
But this crucial ally has developed alarming symptoms of stress -- heatwaves, loss of marine life, rising sea levels, falling oxygen levels and acidification caused by the uptake of excess carbon dioxide.
These effects risk not just the health of the ocean but the entire planet.
- Heating up -
By absorbing more than 90 percent of the excess heat trapped in the atmosphere by greenhouse gases, "oceans are warming faster and faster", said Angelique Melet, an oceanographer at the European Mercator Ocean monitor.
The UN's IPCC climate expert panel has said the rate of ocean warming -- and therefore its heat uptake -- has more than doubled since 1993.
Average sea surface temperatures reached new records in 2023 and 2024.
Despite a respite at the start of 2025, temperatures remain at historic highs, according to data from the Europe Union's Copernicus climate monitor.
The Mediterranean has set a new temperature record in each of the past three years and is one of the basins most affected, along with the North Atlantic and Arctic oceans, said Thibault Guinaldo, of France's CEMS research centre.
Marine heatwaves have doubled in frequency, become longer lasting and more intense, and affect a wider area, the IPCC said in its special oceans report.
Warmer seas can make storms more violent, feeding them with heat and evaporated water.
The heating water can also be devastating for species, especially corals and seagrass beds, which are unable to migrate.
For corals, between 70 percent and 90 percent are expected to be lost this century if the world reaches 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 degrees Fahrenheit) of warming compared to pre-industrial levels.
Scientists expect that threshold -- the more ambitious goal of the Paris climate deal -- to be breached in the early 2030s or even before.
- Relentless rise -
When a liquid or gas warms up, it expands and takes up more space.
In the case of the oceans, this thermal expansion combines with the slow but irreversible melting of the world's ice caps and mountain glaciers to lift the world's seas.
The pace at which global oceans are rising has doubled in three decades and if current trends continue it will double again by 2100 to about one centimetre per year, according to recent research.
Around 230 million people worldwide live less than a metre above sea level, vulnerable to increasing threats from floods and storms.
"Ocean warming, like sea-level rise, has become an inescapable process on the scale of our lives, but also over several centuries," said Melet.
"But if we reduce greenhouse gas emissions, we will reduce the rate and magnitude of the damage, and gain time for adaptation".
- More acidity, less oxygen -
The ocean not only stores heat, it has also taken up 20 to 30 percent of all humans' carbon dioxide emissions since the 1980s, according to the IPCC, causing the waters to become more acidic.
Acidification weakens corals and makes it harder for shellfish and the skeletons of crustaceans and certain plankton to calcify.
"Another key indicator is oxygen concentration, which is obviously important for marine life," said Melet.
Oxygen loss is due to a complex set of causes including those linked to warming waters.
- Reduced sea ice -
Combined Arctic and Antarctic sea ice cover -- frozen ocean water that floats on the surface -- plunged to a record low in mid-February, more than a million square miles below the pre-2010 average.
This becomes a vicious circle, with less sea ice allowing more solar energy to reach and warm the water, leading to more ice melting.
This feeds the phenomenon of "polar amplification" that makes global warming faster and more intense at the poles, said Guinaldo.
bl/klm/mh/phz
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
New York Post
an hour ago
- New York Post
People who eat certain type of diet are at low risk for dementia, research shows
Certain foods may feed the brain better than others. New research presented this week at NUTRITION 2025, the annual meeting of the American Society for Nutrition in Orlando, Florida, found that the MIND diet is particularly beneficial for cognitive health. Advertisement People who followed the MIND eating plan — which stands for Mediterranean-DASH Intervention for Neurodegenerative Delay — were 'significantly less likely' to develop Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia, according to a press release from the American Society for Nutrition. What is the MIND diet? MIND is a hybrid of the Mediterranean diet and the DASH diet (Dietary Approaches to Stop Hypertension), the latter of which is designed to reduce blood pressure. The diet focuses on 'brain-healthy foods' like leafy green vegetables, berries, nuts, and olive oil. 'The MIND diet is unique as the first eating plan focused on foods to specifically improve and support cognitive health,' Lauren Harris-Pincus, registered dietitian nutritionist and founder of and author of 'The Everything Easy Pre-Diabetes Cookbook,' told Fox News Digital. Advertisement 5 New research presented this week at NUTRITION 2025 found that the MIND diet is particularly beneficial for cognitive health. bit24 – 5 Those who followed the diet were shown to have an overall 9% reduced risk of dementia. LIGHTFIELD STUDIOS – The plant-focused MIND diet highlights 10 types of food, including berries, leafy greens, veggies, whole grains, nuts and seeds, beans, legumes, seafood, poultry, and olive oil, according to Harris-Pincus, who was not involved in the research. 'These focus foods contain nutrients that play a critical role in supporting brain health, including flavonoids, carotenoids, B vitamins, omega-3 fatty acids (especially DHA), choline, and minerals like magnesium, potassium, and calcium,' she said. Advertisement 'The diet also suggests limiting foods such as pastries, refined sugar, red meat, cheese, fried foods, fast food, and butter or margarine.' 5 The plant-focused MIND diet highlights 10 types of food, including berries, leafy greens, veggies, and whole grains. monticellllo – MIND's impact on brain health Researchers from the University of Hawaii analyzed data from nearly 93,000 U.S. adults who reported their dietary habits during the 1990s as part of the Multiethnic Cohort Study. At the start of the study, participants ranged in age from 45 to 75. Advertisement 5 People who followed the MIND eating plan were 'significantly less likely' to develop Alzheimer's disease or other forms of dementia, according to a press release from the American Society for Nutrition. Jacob Lund – In analyzing which participants developed Alzheimer's or other dementias in later years, the MIND eating plan performed better than other healthy diets in terms of reducing dementia risk, with benefits seen among both younger and older groups. Those who followed the diet were shown to have an overall 9% reduced risk of dementia, and some groups — African American, Latino, and White participants — showed a 13% lower risk. Asian-Americans and native Hawaiians did not show as pronounced a risk reduction. 5 'Our study findings confirm that healthy dietary patterns in mid to late life and their improvement over time may prevent Alzheimer's and related dementias,' said Song-Yi Park (not pictured), PhD, associate professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. LIGHTFIELD STUDIOS – The longer people adhered to the diet, the greater the reduction of risk. Those who followed the plan over a 10-year period had a 25% lower risk compared to those who didn't stick with it. 'Our study findings confirm that healthy dietary patterns in mid to late life and their improvement over time may prevent Alzheimer's and related dementias,' said Song-Yi Park, PhD, associate professor at the University of Hawaii at Manoa, in the release. 'This suggests that it is never too late to adopt a healthy diet to prevent dementia.'
E&E News
3 hours ago
- E&E News
EPA's new AI tool disagrees with Zeldin on climate change
EPA has a new generative artificial intelligence tool. And it believes climate change is dangerous. That puts it at odds with the Trump administration, which aims to sideline climate change research and data to make it easier to repeal regulations. Closer to home, the AI tool threatens to provide answers that contradict the agency's leader, Administrator Lee Zeldin, who is preparing to release a draft finding in the near future that contends greenhouse gases pose no risk to the public, as he tries to revoke the endangerment finding, a 2009 scientific declaration that underpins most EPA climate regulations. Advertisement The agency's Office of Mission Support released the internal tool for staff May 22, saying in a memo obtained by POLITICO's E&E News that it was intended to help 'modernize the agency and gain new efficiencies.' The office also set some rules for use, including telling staff not to 'use the tool as the sole performer of an inherently government function or as the decisionmaker in any EPA activities,' and to check its answers for 'accuracy and bias.' 'Recognize that output from the tool may be convincing, but it may be wrong,' said OMS, the agency's administrative office. The Trump administration has used AI heavily. But experts said that despite its rollout last month, the EPA tool was probably not developed under President Donald Trump. Ann Dunkin, who served as chief information officer at the Department of Energy under former President Joe Biden, said because the tool was designed for internal use and utilizes EPA data, it is probably an artifact of the Biden era. 'What the departments and agencies are trying to do is experiment with AI and figure out how it can help and how it can make people more productive. And that's what's going on here,' she said. The Biden administration maintained inventories of AI tools, which showed 17 models in use at EPA last year. The memo introducing the tool last month stated that it has 'been in the works for some time.' EPA didn't respond to requests for comment. But the tool itself answered questions submitted by three agency employees, who were granted anonymity to avoid retribution. It explained its own origin by stating that it was 'developed by OpenAI, and it is integrated into Microsoft products and services, such as Azure OpenAI Service.' Beth Simone Noveck, a professor of experiential AI at Northeastern University, said that seemed to indicate EPA had a contract with Microsoft for an AI language model that had been customized for use in agency work. The tool's views on climate science are conventional — if not always accurate. For example, one EPA staffer shared an exchange in which the tool appeared to say the power sector is the largest source of U.S. climate pollution. In fact, it's second to transportation. EPA is expected to soon argue as part of a regulatory rollback that U.S. power plants contribute too little carbon emissions to planetary warming to warrant regulation. The AI tool is clear that heat-trapping pollution poses a threat to public health and welfare — a key aspect of a foundational EPA scientific conclusion, known as the endangerment finding — that underpins most climate regulations. Zeldin is expected to try to undo the finding soon. The AI tool listed 'extreme weather events,' vector-borne diseases, and food and water shortages among the threats posed by human-caused warming, in search results shared with POLITICO'S E&E News. 'Climate change is real and is supported by a vast body of scientific evidence,' it states in one answer. 'It refers to significant and lasting changes in the Earth's climate, particularly an increase in global temperatures, largely due to human activities such as burning fossil fuels, deforestation and industrial processes.' Trump has rejected the basic tenets of climate change and is pursuing an energy agenda that promotes unfettered production of oil, gas and coal. His administration has also doubled down on the use of AI as a governance tool. Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy, who co-ran the so-called Department of Government Efficiency until both left the cost-cutting initiative, wrote in a November op-ed in The Wall Street Journal that they planned to use 'advanced technology' to identify and kill rules that weren't in line with recent Supreme Court decisions. AI was also used in writing a recent Department of Health and Human Services report on U.S. life expectancy and is blamed for the report citing studies that don't exist. Other agencies are launching new AI tools right now. Noveck of Northeastern University said the U.S. Food and Drug Administration got one around the same time as EPA. She said AI tools are good at weeding out jargon and translating regulatory text into plain language to make it more accessible and usable by people and businesses. But, she said, they are not a substitute for human judgment in policymaking. 'You cannot use these tools to replace humans,' Noveck said. 'You need them to act as auxiliaries, as helpers, as assistants — effectively as a next generation of word processor.' The HHS report had evidently not been reviewed for accuracy, she said. 'It's irresponsible, it's unprofessional, and it's shoddy,' she added. 'And when it comes to policies that affect the lives of millions of people, it's immoral and unconscionable.' Dunkin, the former DOE official, said the OMS rules for use also seemed to indicate that it was a Biden-era tool, despite making its debut under Trump. 'It doesn't sound like a DOGE project, because those folks don't believe in checking their work,' said Dunkin, who was EPA's chief information officer during former President Barack Obama's second term. DOGE took over the existing U.S. Digital Service, a decade-old White House office, and from there gained access to agencies and their data. Some of that data appears to have been transferred outside of the federal government, Dunkin said. She added that during the Biden administration, EPA developed AI tools to help speed environmental reviews by gathering documents and permitting requirements from across the government.
E&E News
3 hours ago
- E&E News
3 local governments appeal climate losses to Maryland Supreme Court
The Maryland cities of Baltimore and Annapolis, along with Anne Arundel County, are appealing a trio of losses in their lawsuits seeking to hold the oil and gas industry financially liable for climate change. The parties filed a consolidated brief with the Maryland Supreme Court on Tuesday, arguing that the circuit courts that dismissed the lawsuits misunderstood the claims in the cases and that the verdicts should be reversed. They wrote that the two courts that rejected the lawsuits adopted the industry's 'mischaracterization' of the cases as efforts to limit greenhouse gases nationally and globally. Rather, the governments argued, the lawsuits argue that the companies violated state consumer protection laws by knowingly misleading purchasers about the dangers of burning fossil fuels. Advertisement 'Remedying deceptive and misleading commercial conduct as alleged here is within the core of state police powers,' the appeal says, quoting a 2018 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that found it 'is well settled that the states have a legitimate interest in combating the adverse effects of climate change on their residents.'
