Quite a sad reading report from the UN over night.
World's oceans at a tipping point, indicates UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report
On Wednesday, the IPCC released its Special Report on Oceans and Cryosphere (or frozen areas) in a Changing Climate, finding that since the 1970s, these vast blue expanses have absorbed 90 per cent of excess heat in the climate.
Recently, the world's oceans have also had to work overtime to suck up excess pollution caused by humans and it's taking its toll.
Oceans are warming faster than before, causing ice sheets, permafrost and glaciers to rapidly melt.
As they do, they risk releasing toxins and harmful gasses, which would further heat the planet.
And as the ice melts, the excess water is pushing up sea levels and diluting important surface layers, forcing change within the ecosystems that reside there.
Experts warn that unless significant and coordinated changes are made to limit global warming, the world's oceans and frozen areas will undergo unprecedented changes that will be devastating to human life.
The report is the most definitive scientific account yet of current observations and predictions about what oceans and cryosphere will look like if global warming is capped to under 2 degrees Celsius — and what we will face is if isn't.
"While sea level has risen globally by around 15 centimetres during the 20th century, it is currently rising more than twice as fast — 3.6 mm per year — and accelerating," the IPCC report reads.
The report also concluded sea levels would continue to rise for centuries, and could surge by up to 60cm by the year 2100, even if greenhouse gas emissions were sharply reduced and global warming was limited to well below 2C.
If emissions continue to rise rapidly, those levels could rise by up to 110cm by the end of this century.
Driving the expansion of our oceans is the rapid thawing of ice in Greenland and the Arctic.
It is not known whether the melting of ice sheets is reversible, although that is likely to be a major area of focus for researchers in the coming years.
"Our oceans have changed," said Nathan Bindoff, a report co-author, and one of the world's leading climate scientists.
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