Abel to Speak
About the Health of Our Mother Earth
Our Oceans
"If forests constitute one lung of our planet, then oceans are the other. The great blue waters suck up over a quarter of atmospheric carbon dioxide and produce half of our oxygen, but now they are tired and poisoned."
Our oceans are getting warmer and more acidic as a result of the carbon dioxide saturation of our atmosphere. Temperature rises are causing polar ice to melt at a rate never seen before, while acidic conditions are killing coral reefs and destroying fish populations. Chronic land based pollution has spawned over 400 coastal dead zones around the world and has resulted in massive areas of low oxygenation that is decimating marine habitat. Unless we clean our oceans, we will lose all marine life and kill ourselves.
Extract from GO2NE working group. Data from world Ocean Atlas 2013 as supplied by Professor R J Diaz, Virginia Institute of Marine Science.
Arctic sea ice
An important barometer for the impact of global warming is the progressive reduction in Arctic (and Antarctic) sea ice.
Based on 40 years of scientific study of ice mass and quality, sometimes controversial Cambridge Professor, Peter Wadhams, has long predicted that ice-free summers in the Arctic Ocean are only a matter of years away. Listen to his You Tube presentation here.
Now, it seems that his predictions are being taken more seriously, following research being reported by the National Snow and Ice Data Center. Read a report on Mongabay here.
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These changes in Arctic ice are affecting global weather patterns, and could result in a massive release of methane from the sea bed as polar permafrost melts, accelerating global warming exponentially.
Dead zones
A report produced by Denise Breitburg at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center suggests that ocean dead zones have quadrupled since the1950's.
Dead zones are areas of ocean where oxygen levels have decreased to such an extent that marine life cannot survive. They are caused principally by industrial and agricultural run-off that enters river systems and is deposited in the sea. Nitrate and phosphate based fertilisers are the biggest problem, promoting the growth of algae blooms.
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Low oxygen levels are now becoming a significant problem in large areas of the Pacific and Indian Ocean, presenting habitat restriction to large sections of marine life. See the map here.
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The oceans provide roughly half of the oxygen in the atmosphere, so oxygen depletion in our oceans is a real problem to mankind.
Reference materials
Ocean Cleanup
A Dutch based non-profit organisation is doing what governments have been incapable of doing - cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, which covers an area of ocean the size of India.
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Click the button below to find out about the innovative solution Ocean Cleanup is deploying to clear the Great Pacific Garbage Patch.
Plastic pollution
8 million tonnes of plastic enters our oceans each year. Plastic is regularly ingested by fish, sea birds and mammals, and has contaminated the human food chain.
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Click the button below to read the summary report of plastic pollution of the marine environment by Dr Jose Derraik of Auckland University.
