Oceans are the best thermometer we have to check our planet’s temperature, the impact of climate change is clearly evident in them.
They are our protectors from strong heat waves and absorb 90 percent of the heat that comes from climate change caused by greenhouse gases from human activity, thus reducing the surface heatwave. But ultimately this massive heat isn’t vanishing anywhere. Instead, it accumulates and is restored into the sea, causing an increase in ocean temperature. This further aggravates the negative consequences accelerating climate change.
According to a report by Advances Atmospheric Sciences, the world’s oceans (especially above 2000 metres) in 2019 were the warmest in recorded human history.
The heating has been distributed throughout the world’s oceans, with the vast majority of regions showing an increase in thermal energy. Thermal energy brings in storms, extreme weather, marine heatwave and causes damage to marine life.
The report says that the increase in ocean temperature reduces the amount of dissolved oxygen in the ocean. This significantly affects sea life, particularly corals and other temperature or chemical sensitive organisms. The rising heat increases evaporation, and the extra moisture in the warmer atmosphere leads to heavy rains.This promotes flooding, leading to a more extreme hydro-logical cycle and more extreme weather (in particular hurricanes and typhoons). It is one of the key reasons why the Earth has experienced increasing catastrophic fires in the Amazon, California, and Australia in 2019 and now extending into 2020.
Oceans are facing the consequences of actions they have no part in. Climate change is a sensitive issue that needs attention at an individual and global level to bring any fruition to the initiatives taken in order to curb it. This problem transcends species, borders and belief systems, everyone gets affected. The data collected in a 2018 report by Lancet countdown on health and climate change showed distressing results. A whopping 153 billion hours of labour were wiped out because the days were too hot to head out safely, let alone work in the gruelling environment.
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