what the ocean collapsing means and what ramifications that would have on the environment and on humanity
In: Planetary Science
1. Climate change is making it so that the polar regions are becoming warmer. The way that the oceans work right now is that the water in the cooler regions cycles toward the Equator where it’s warmed and then cycles back toward the poles where it’s cooled again, churning up the water column at the same time so that there’s more oxygen and nutrients available for the life living in it. With the warmer poles, the currents are weakened, making the mix less effective than before.
2. The oceans themselves are becoming warmer, making it more difficult to carry oxygen. In the Antarctic, there’s a family of fish, appropriately called icefish, that don’t have hemoglobin in their blood. Cold water is so efficient at carrying oxygen that these fish don’t need red blood cells to keep their bodies running. But this means that they’re not able to survive in warmer climates. Right now, the Earth’s waters in the warmer areas are becoming so anoxic that they can’t support animals that have become accustomed to certain oxygen levels. A few years back, biologists noticed that starfish had begun to rip themselves apart. It took a lot of research to discover that this was because they were trying to increase their surface area for more oxygen absorption, to disastrous effect.
3. At the same time, the increasing amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is making it so that more of it is dissolving into the oceans. The CO2 interacts with the H2O, combining the chemicals into bicarbonate, HCO-3, which is an acid, lowering the oceans’ pH. A lot of marine life forms require a certain pH range in order to function and grow. A too acidic environment will cause those functions to fail, potentially making these species go extinct.
Earth has been this warm before, but the heating was much more gradual in the past than it is this time around, making it difficult for most life to adapt to the new conditions. We don’t fully know what life forms are most important to keeping the system running. If one of these keystone species dies out, the entire marine ecosystem will go with it, causing disastrous results on land as well. We’d rather that didn’t happen, which is why there’s so much talk about the collapse of the oceans.
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