The world pressures of over-fishing and pollution are already a major threat to sea life. Throw climate change into the mix and we’re reading into a whole deeper story.
With oceans covering the majority of our planet, you’d think there would be more attention garnered towards the deep blue mass of beauty that always lies just beyond.
It’s comforting, in a way, to know that we understand so very little about what thrives beneath the ocean’s surface. Science has taken us very far, but the ocean remains a world much larger than our own, that reaches places to which our imaginations can’t yet fathom.
And yet, the impact of us living on this planet is unintentionally having an incredibly significant impact on ocean life. There are three major climate change shifts that the World Conservation Monitoring Centre points to when it comes to ocean life, as explained in the book Global Warming for Dummies:
Increasing Carbon Dioxide in The Water
When the ocean water takes in carbon dioxide from the atmosphere, the carbon dioxide dissolves, becoming carbonic acid, which makes the water more acidic. Raising the water’s acidity negatively affects shell building for sea snails or coral, and when those species are endangered, so are all the species that prey on them or (in the case of reefs) live in and depend on them.
Increasing Water Temperature
Many ocean species are sensitive to the temperature of the water. Coral reefs, for example, have been shown to suffer badly from higher water temperatures. The Great Barrier Reef off the coast of Australia is at risk.
Shifting Ocean Movements
The Ocean is constantly in motion, with a vast conveyer belt of currents that carry warmth to cooler parts of the globe (and vice versa). These currents provide food sources for other sea creatures. Increased fresh melt water from polar ice, brought on by climate change, has the potential to shift, stall, or stop ocean currents altogether. Currents influence the heat transfer in ocean environments, and changes in how warm water moves around can have consequences for temperature-sensitive species.
Coral reefs are under pressure from both rising sea temperatures as well as acidification. Temperature rises melt ice shelves, under which phytoplankton – the base of the ocean food chain - grow and thrive. Coral reefs become bleached when ocean temperatures rise even slightly. Acidification, however, is a less-talked-about issue linked to climate change.
Coral is, of course, akin to the hub of life in the ocean. Riddled with biodiversity (or so they used to be in many places), this living animal of coral – with a stomach, a mouth, and even a sex life – is home to small living organisms, plants and fish. And a fish without a home is no fish at all, putting much of the small fish food at odds, and putting their big fish predators at odds as well.
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change reports that the ocean, on average, has decreased in pH by 0.1 making it more acidic due to the uptake of human caused carbon from the atmosphere. This is only expected to decrease anywhere from 0.14 to 0.35 in pH over this century. Because this is a relatively new phenomenon, the direct effects of ocean acidification have yet to be observed. Despite this, the links to coral are strongly projected.
There is no second chance to limit our impacts on the ocean life that sustains us. With coral reefs being an element of the ocean being necessary to the stream of ocean life as we know it, it would seem that any warning signs or potential threats to coral would be enough to change the way we operate, based on a simple risk assessment alone.
And there lies the question: If ‘oceans at risk’ was the one and only negative effect of climate change, would that not be enough to call the world to action to?
I should certainly hope so.
Consider writing to your Minister of Environment or Minister of Oceans and Fisheries to state your concern of climate change impacts on ocean life.
Zoë Caron is the Co-author of Global Warming for Dummies and an Editor of It's Getting Hot in Here, a youth movement to stop global warming and build a more just and sustainable future.
The world pressures of over-fishing and pollution are already a major threat to sea life. Throw climate change into the mix and we’re reading into a whole deeper story. 
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