Hundreds Of Millions Of The Global Poor Will Be Affected By Warming Oceans

By Jeff Spross on October 23, 2013 at 9:43 am

CREDIT: United Nations Environment Program

The damage climate change will do to the oceans could be disastrous for the world’s poorest, according to a new study.

Humanity’s greenhouse gas emissions will alter the oceans in several ways, including shifts in ocean temperature, reduced oxygen concentrations, and higher acidity as they absorb more carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. To track how, a group of researchers lead by Camilo Mora, a geography professor at the University of Hawaii, ran 32 marine habitats around the world through a series of modeled simulations. They looked at what would happen to these areas until 2100, under both a “business as usual” scenario — in which carbon dioxide concentration in the atmosphere rises to 900 parts per million — and an alternative scenario in which humanity takes drastic action to cut those emissions.

“Our results suggest that the entire world’s ocean surface will be simultaneously impacted by varying intensities of ocean warming, acidification, oxygen depletion, or shortfalls in productivity,” the researchers reported. “Only a very small fraction of the oceans, mostly in polar regions, will face the opposing effects of increases in oxygen or productivity, and almost nowhere will there be cooling or [decrease in acidity].”

These changes could very well reduce the oceans’ biological productivity. In particular, the models suggested a four to ten percent cut in the production of phytoplankton, which form the lowest foundation of most of the oceanic food chains. That in turn would mean “massive and challenging” ramifications for the 470 to 870 million poor people around the world who rely on the seas for their food and livelihoods. Many of them live in the countries that will be the hardest hit by the changes the researchers tracked.

This work follows up on a growing body of evidence detailing the unique threat climate change poses to the global poor. The problems extend well beyond ocean changes, to extreme weather and crop disruptions. Southern and southeastern Asia are home to a large portion of the global poor, and face destabilizing climate shifts, altered monsoon patterns, and floods. The World Bank has warned that within two decades, drought and rising heat could leave 40 percent of sub-Saharan Africa’s farmland unsuitable for growing maize or for grazing livestock.

Other studies predict 325 million extremely poor people will live in 49 of the globe’s most climate disaster-prone areas by 2030.

The ocean study was published this month in the journal Public Library of Science Biology.

Innocent bystander wrote on Oct 25^th, 2013 at 12:49pm:


The key to that article was not fish, but phytoplankton. You seem to have missed that. Sure, phytoplankton have adapted in the past, but not that quickly.

The corals and phytoplankton of the Pliocene were mostly different species which had adapted to the conditions of the era. 

Some people waste their lives living in fear of something they have no control over, and some people just get on with it and live life to the full.

I'm glad to be in the latter group (I can't imagine what it would be like to be constantly consumed by irrational fear).

F#ck red arse what happened?, did you get pack raped by the gorillas? 

greggerypeccary wrote on Oct 25^th, 2013 at 4:47pm:


I don't live in fear of it, because for one thing, I will be dead by the time the major consequences become apparent.

You guys are clearly in denial. The fact that you spend so much time in this forum shows that what you have is not apathy, but real fear-based denial.

greggerypeccary wrote on Oct 25^th, 2013 at 5:10pm:


It  may be difficult for you to come to terms with, but it's an evolutionary trait, both collectively and individually to CARE and have an interest in survival and the future.

The sociopaths and self destructive psychopaths are basically rare exceptions, out layers, freaks if you will.

I am not surprised you lack empathy

greggerypeccary wrote on Oct 25^th, 2013 at 7:03pm:


The future must just be another one of those theories, like gravity and rainfall

greggerypeccary wrote on Oct 25^th, 2013 at 7:07pm:


So on that linguistic and semantical level a person can do what ever they like NOW, because he cars about the concept of the future?

Tell you what. Go and rob and bank and wait for the police to arrive when the alarm goes off. See what happens to your conceptual future