Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Humans 'damaging oceans' in profound ways

Science Daily: There is mounting evidence that human activity is changing the world’s oceans in profound and damaging ways.

Man-made carbon emissions “are affecting marine biological processes from genes to ecosystems over scales from rock pools to ocean basins, impacting ecosystem services and threatening human food security,” the study by Professor Mike Kingsford of the ARC Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies and James Cook University and colleague Dr Andrew Brierley of St Andrews University, Scotland, warns.

A new review, published in the latest issue of the journal Current Biology, says that rates of physical change in the oceans are unprecedented in some cases, and change in ocean life is likely to be equally quick.

These include changes in the areas fish and other sea species can inhabit, invasions, extinctions and major shifts in marine ecosystems.

“In the past, the boundaries between geological ages are marked by sudden losses of species. We may now be entering a new age in which climate change and other human-caused factors such as fishing are the major threats for the oceans and their life,” Andrew and Mike say….

Sunrise over the North Pacific, shot by Andrew Garrett, Wikimedia Commons, under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 2.5 License

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